S-9 H^ 



^L^^^^^.^mvn 






SB 215 
.S9 
1902 
Copy 1 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE THIRD 



Sugar Cane and Cassava 
Convention 



HELD AT 



BRUNSWICK, GEORGIA 



ON THE 



TWELFTH DAY OF APEIL, 1902. 



>'^ 



\}^ 



-^^,o. 



PROCEEDINGS 

OF THE 

THIRD SUGAR CANE AND CASAVA CONVENTION 

HELD AT BRUNSWICK, GEORGIA, APRIL 12, 1902. 



'J'he convention wps called to order by the president, Hon. C. 
P, Goodyear, at 10:00 a. m., The exercises were opened with 
prayer from Rev. W. C. Austin. 

The Chair: We have, gentlemen of the convention, in this 
community a gentleman who is always abreast of every movement 
in favor of the progress of his State and of this section, and who is 
frequently in advance of his time, the president of our Board of 
Trade, who will deliver the address of welcome, Capt. Prank D. 
Aiken. 

Mr. Aiken: Ladies and Gentlemen — It is my pleasure to ex- 
tend to you a most hearty welcome to our city, not only on behalf 
of the Brunswick Board of Trade, but for the people of Brunswick 
and for the people of Glynn county. It is a great pleasure and 
gratilication to me to look into the faces of such a gathering, and 
doubly so when I think of the good cause for which you have as- 
sembled. 

'V\1iile we have made great strides in the past twelve months 
in the direction of successfully introducing the cultivation of 
cassava in this locality, we want your help, and we feel from your 
presence here today that you are with us, and with that assurance 
we are satisfied that there can be no such thing as fail. All of us 
are deeply interested and must work together. 

The general tendency of business for some years past has 
been toward us. We have prospered, and are prospering today, 
but as our forests are being depleted, the rosin, turpentine and 
lumber business all being fed by it, we must look to the future, 
for our children's sake if not for our own. The present generation 
seems amply provided for, but we owe it to the next to leave a 
prosp3rous country, and not a devastated one. We must be 
greater producers from the soil, and the opportunity is now before 
us in the cultivation and production of sugarcane and cassava, and 
also the velvet bean, about all of which you will hear today from 
men of not only great practical experience, but great ability, such 
as Professor Stockbrjdge, Mr. Gaitskill, Mr. Wade and others, 
most of whom have been with us before and given us inestimable 
help in this great movement. They will tell you aU about the 
practical side so that you c?n talfe advantage of the opportunity, 
and with the advice of such men p-actJr^Dy carried out you canndt 
help but succeed. I only wish I tiad such informal ion ind ©3^ 
porience h.v- as our worthy conerreoarauji., Br.uit'-iQ-, s-'kI oiiv: day 
from tn s veiy platform: "Frar k Aiken cannot tell a cahbagrefrom 
rt pot;ito,'";,&.T/d t/ifre is more truth than poetry in wh-il he said. 
E7.c%'.?ver, sir.'Ce the commencement of th's movement, I have 
iedioiC'.l e;iiv*jL>;r. to t'"!* vou that f.je se^?d ivoi-i an acre oX c^jJ^va 



will net you more mor ey tou8.\ tiian an acre of cabbages, potatoes, 
or anything else that I know oJ that is being grown m this section. 
Of course that is sa^'ing nothing about the roots, from which you 
would certainly get twenty to thirty doUars per acre for-^tock teed 

As a Brunswickinn, I think tliere is just reason for us to feel 
proud of the part we have taken in this movement and the good 
results that have been t^ie outcome of the two conventions that we 
held here last year. A.'e intend to keep Brunswick in the front 
rank of just such movements until all the farmers in this section 
join hands with us ord make it the success that we know it will 
eventually be, and if the outcome of this meeting is as satisfactory 
and as productive of good results in proportion to the ones we had 
last year, it will not be a great while before we reach the desired 
end. I am sure every one of you will be fully satisfied that your 
presence here has done good, and that you have gotten information 
that will give you new hfe in your industry, and make you feel 
fully repaid for the expense and time the trip has cost you. 

We not only want you to reap the benefits that will naturally 
arise from being present at this meeting, but we want you to enjoy 
your visit to our city, and we extend to you the fuUest freedom 
wittdn its borders. 

I have some letters here from some of our public men that we 
hoped to have with us here today that I will read. The first one is 
from Senator Bacon. All of the letters are addressed jointly to 
Col. 0. P. Goodyear, our president, and to me: 

' U. S. Senate Chamber, Washington, D. C, April 2, ,1902. 

Gentlemen — Your very kind letter of the 29th ultimo was duly 
received, inviting me to attend the Third Cane and Cassava Con- 
vention to be held at Brunswick, Ga., April 12th, 1902. I thank 
you very much for the invitation, but I regret very much that I 
wiU be unable to accept the same for the reason that my public 
duties on account of tl e importance of matters pending will pre- 
vent my being absent from the Senate at that time. I am in sym- 
pathy with the object of this convention, as it will tend to diversify 
the farming industries in Georgia, which will no doubt ultimately 
benefit the State. Again thanking you for your very kind invita- 
tion, I am, with best wishes, Very truly yours, "■ 

A. O. Bacon. 

Then we have one from Senator Clay, which I will also read: 
United States Senate, Washington, D. C, April 9th, 1902. 
Gentlemen — I take pleasure in acknowledging the receipt 
of your favor inviting me to attend a Cane and Cassava Conventioa 
to be held in the city of Brunswick on April 12th. I have been 
endeavoring to shape my business so as to accept, but find that my 
official duties wiU deny me the pleasure. The River and Harbor 
Bill, in which Brunswick is greatly interested, has been before the 
Committee on Commerce, of which I am a member, for the last 
two weeks and I have felt it my duty to attend evcy meeting of 
the committee and to watch zealously, not only th« Interests of 
Brunswick, but the entire State. I believe the x-e salts will deja- 
onstrate that such attendance will greatly advani>e tLo commercial 
interests of the city of BrunsAvick. The bll ha.s not yei beea 
ccmpiot-od., end it -a III K' noc<^ssary for me t-j watch thus legisbition 

4 



for weeks to come. I appreciate most highly this invitation SSBSi 
would be delighted to attend, but my official duties demand my 
attention here. ^I sincerely hope tbft you may bavealarge attend- 
ance from all over South Georgia, and do not doubt that much good 
will result from the discussions had in the convention. 

I have co-operated heretofore, and shall continue to do 80, 
with your able and efficient representative, Hon. W. G. Brantley, 
in advancinp^ in every v^ay I could every m;iterial interest in South 
Geor.^a. Both of us have frequently conferred with the Secretary 
of Agriculture in regard to the cultivatiftn of cane and cassava, 
and we have found him ready to listen and co-operate with us in 
developing this industry. The b"U providing appropriations for 
the Agriculturnl Dej^artnient has not yet reached the Senate. 
When it passes the House I sincerely hope that it will contain an 
appropriation for a syrup exp 'rimental station in South Georgia. 
I know that both Mr. Brant'ey and Secretary Wilson favor such a 
station. Such a station would enable the people of South Georgia 
to determine the soil best adapted to cane, which would be of great 
benefit to the people. A syrup refinery would teach the best way 
of making syrup. \\Tiat the people of South Georgia desire to 
know is the soil adapted to raising cane, the best variety of cane to 
be used, and the proi:>er way of cultivating it, and the most scien- 
tific way of making syrup. An experiment station would be of 
great utility on the line suggested, and has h'>en recommended by 
the Agricultural Department. I hope the bill will contain this ap- 
propriation when it come^ from the House, but if it does not, I 
shall feel it my duty to go before the Committee on Agriculture in 
the Senate and urge that such a station be established in South 
Georgia. The cultivation of cassava is of equal importance with 
that of cane. The future raising of stock all over Georgia and the 
South should be encouraged in every way possible; it means the 
enrichment and preservation of our lands. However, time will 
not permit me to discuss in this letter the advantages to accrue to 
the people of South Georgia from the cultivation of sugarcane and 
cassava. These questions will be discussed by those attending the 
convention, and, doubtless, many of the delegates that are in at- 
tendance will be able to speak intelligently and from experience 
on th's important subject. I am always greatly interested in the 
discission of any question which has in view the development of 
any interest in Georg:a. I would very much enjoy attending this 
convention, and I am sure that I should be benefitted by the dis- 
cussion to take place. Nothing but official duties prevent me from 
accei^ting your kind invitation. 

With best wishes for the success of the convention, and with 
assurance of high regards for each of you personally, I am, 

Most sincerely yours, 

A. S. Clay. 

And here is one from our own W. G. Brantley: 
' House of Representatives, U. S., 

Washington, D. C, AprU 8th, 1902. 
Gentlemen — I beg to acknowledge your recent letter, inviting 
me to attend a Cane and Cassava Convention to be held in the city 
of Bru^swick on April 12tii, and.to express my sincere regret tiiat 

5 



i am tmaWe to accept same. My official duties will deny me the 
pleasure of attending your convention, notwithstanding an earnest 
personal desire upon my part to do so. 

I hope that you may have a large attendance from all over 
South Georgia, and that much and lasting good may result from 
the discussions had in the convention. I beheve that there are 
great possibiUties for South Georgia in the cultivation of both su- 
gar cane and cassava, and the efforts of the Board of Trade of 
Brunswick to bring these possibilities to the attention of the peo- 
ple, deserve to be most higlily commended. 

The purest, best and most wholesome table syrup in the world 
is the Georgia cane syrup; and when our people learn to make it 
of a uniform grade of the best quality, the profits to come from its 
manufacture will greatly increase the revenues of our people. 
Aside from the difficulty of making a quality of syrup that will 
maintain its sweetness and purity in warm Vv-eather, the great dif- 
ficulty in marketing it grows out of the want of uniformity. Com- 
merce cannot rely upon it. A derJer building up a trade on one 
shipment of our syrup received by him has no assurance of satis- 
fying his trade with the next shipment he receives, for he is more 
than apt to receive an entirely diiferent quality of syrup. 

Such questions as these are profitable ones for discussion by 
your convention, and their discussion by those competent to deal 
with them must result in greatly increasing the store of knowl- 
edge of our people. 

In this connection, it may not be am^ss fo.* me to advise you 
that those of us in Washington interested in this question hope 
that when the agricultural appropriation bill is reported to the 
House, it will contain a])propriationfor a syrup experimental sta- 
tion in South Georgia. Should we obtain the appropriation, it will 
be used for the purpose of determining the soil best adapted to 
cane, the best variety of cane for our uses, and the most econom- 
ical way of cultivating it. A syrup refinery will also be estab- 
lished for the purpose of illustrating by scientific methods the 
best way of making syrup, and a way that all our farmers can 
adopt, and, by adopting, can all make the same grade and quality 
of syrup, a^nd in this way obtain the uniformity that is so much to 
be desired. 

I beg to call your attention also to the deep interest that has 
been and is being manifested in this subject in our belialf by Sec 
retary Wilson, of the Department of Agriculture, and Dr. YViley, 
the Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry in the Department of Agri- 
culture. Both these gentlemen thoroughly appreciate and under- 
stand our situation, and are sincerely desirous of aiding us to the 
fullest extent in bringing about the highest possible development 
of our great cane syrup resources. 

The cultivation of cassava is none the less important to our 
people than the cultivation of sugar cane, and it is in fact regarded 
by many, and perhaps justly so, as being even more important 
than the cultivation of cane. If it be true, as we ha^e been ad- 
vised by those who ought to know, that our soil and chm.ate are 
well adapted to the growth of the cassava plant, then its cultiva- 
tion by our people win add a new and distinct source of income to 

6 



our part of the State, and one that must ultimately be of large 
proportions. 

The cultivation of cassava, as I understand it, means, to begin 
with, the utilization of vast areas of now unoccupied or waste lands, 
and the bringing into use of these lands is only one of the benefi- 
cial results to be obtained. It means also the cultivation of a pro- 
fitable money crop, and, in addition, makes possible the great de- 
velopment of our stock raising industry. The future of stock 
raising in South Georgia must be watched with interest by all who 
are interested in our material welfare. With fresh beef selling 
today at an almost fabulous price, who can estimate the changed 
condition of our people if they are selling this beef instead of buy- 
ing itV Besides these results to come from the cultivation of cas- 
sava, we also have the prospect of starch factories, which mean 
large investments of capital and large employment of labor. Cas- 
sava thus appears to possess the possibilities of building up both 
town and country. Its cultivation suggests too much of good to 
our people for them to neglect the opportunity of demonstrating 
for themselves what they can do with it. I should regard its cul- 
tivation in Georgia as marking a new step in our progress and de- 
velopment, and perhaps the greatest that we have ever made. 

These questions, as I understand, will all be fully discussed in 
your convention, and discussed by men who can speak from scien- 
tific knowledge and from personal investigation and experience. I 
truly hope that they may have as listeners very many of our peo- 
ple, and that great enthusiasm for the development, upbuilding 
and uplifting of South Georgia on the lines discussed may result. 

I would personally very much enjoy the discussi<ms, and only 
my sense of official responsibility, perhaps more keen just now on 
account of our local interests here than it may be later, keeps me 
from accepting your very courteous invitation. 

Thanking you for same, and with assurances of high regard 
to each of you personally, aijd with the best wishes for the success 
of your convention, I am Very truly yours, 

W. G. BRANTLEY. 

I thank you sincerely, ladies and gentlemen, for your pres- 
ence, 'and again assure you that Brunswick extends you a most 
hearty welcome. By authority of our worthy mayor, the keys of 
the city are willingly and gladly turned over to this grand meeting, 
the third Sugar Cane and Cassava Convention. 
The President's Address — Col. Goodyear: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is always expected that the pre- 
siding officer of an association at its public meetings shall have 
something to say to those present, and f ulfiUing that time honored 
custom, I will detain you for only a very short time. 

The dictionary definition of a pessimist is: "One who com- 
plains of everything as being for the worst — who habitually exag- 
gerates evil." This definition is not broad enough, for he lives on 
an island of egotism in an ocean of woe. He wraps the cloak of 
his misery around him and shuts out the sunlight with blue fore- 
bodings of evil. He rails at all prosperity, aU efforts to attain it. 



He will do no work for himself or others, and ridicules and mis- 
represents all who do. He resents God's sunshine, turns his back 
on the bow of promise, and is never so happy as when he has 
chased smiles from a human face or hope from a human heart. 

He has lived in all ages, and been a curse to all. No great and 
prosperous city or section is a monument to his worth or work. 
He is worse than the sluggard, for he works evil with his mouth. 
Two blades of grass have never grown where one grew before at 
his instance, and never will. Dying he leaves no beneficent record 
on the times in which he has lived, no loving memories in the hearts 
of his kind. 

The dictionary definition of the optimist is: "One who believes 
all things are ordered for the best — hopes for the best." That is 
not broad enough; for he enjoys the sunshine, and radiates it into 
the hearts and lives of all with whom he comes in contact. He en- 
joy the beauties of nature, fellowship with his kind, work for their 
welfare. He has high courage for the present, hope for the future. 
He joins hands with any who are making earnest effort for their 
section, city or State. He knows no such word as failure, and is 
inspired to renewed energy by every fresh obstacle; works as well 
in the ranks as in the position of leader; makes two blades of 
grass, two ears of corn, two stalks of sugar cane, two cassava 
plants grow where one grew before: works for lasting prosperity, 
is a benefactor to his race; derides nothing because it is new, tries 
all things, holds fast to those which are good. 

It was not in the atmosphere of pessimism that this movement 
was born — a movement, I undertake to say, however modist its 
name, as important to South Georgia as any since General Ogle- 
thorpe established his garrison town at Frederica in this harbor. 

Its originators believed that the people of South Georgia, who 
had written into the census of 1900 a record of increased wealth 
and population unequaled in any other section of Georgia, would 
not weary in weU doing. 

Col. I. C. Wade, the industrial and industrious agent of the 
Southern Railway Company, visited Florida with a representative 
of our Board of Trade and studied cassava where it is raised with 
profit as a food for and fattener of stock, and in the manufacture 
of starch. He came back and reported, and ui-ged our Board of 
Trade to call a Sugar Cane and Cassava Convention. It was called 
and held, addressed by able speakers, fifteen thousand cassava 
seed distributed, a permanent Sugar Cane and Cassava Associa- 
tion organized, and adjourned. 

In October last we had another convention. A magnificent 
display of cassava plants and roots and sugar cane was made. All 
trials of cassava had been successful. An address by Professor 
Stockbridge, of Florida, was ifiade, stored with practical informa- 
tion, which has been distributed in your seats in this convention, 
and which every South Georgian should read. 

Wliat has been accomplished? In one year we have aroused 
enough interest in cassava planting to increase the acreage fully 
fifteen fold. The demand for cassava seed in Florida and Georgia 
far exceeds any supply for this year. Better methods of making 



syrup are being adopted, and there is a large increase of the acre- 
age in sugar cane. 

We have with us today a gentleman who is a complete answer 
to the charge often made that our climate is enervating. His brain 
and body are reservoirs of energy, constantly and unselfishly used 
for the good of his city, section and State, with an unselfishness 
which must command the respect, and should command the love 
of our people. It has been thought a fitting prelude to the address 
of our distinguished guest from Washington that he should address 
us upon a subject, part of which he is: "The New Development of 
of the South." I introduce Capt. D. G. Purse, of Savannah. 

Mr. Purse: 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: We are too prone 
to make the mistake of qualifying the development in the South 
that confronts us today as illustrating a New South. It is only 
necessary to recall the history of the South as it presents itself in 
all its records, to show that the South of today is but the contin- 
uance of the South that we have always known. 

Prior to 1865 our development was almost exclusively of an 
agricultural charaxiter, farming was more profitable than manu- 
facturing, although to the extent that manufacturing had been 
tried, manufacturing was profitable; but when a section or a coun- 
try or a nation gets into a groove in any line of industry, it seems 
to take the mightiest to turn the stream from the bed it has worn 
into through others, or even to divide that stream so that we can 
follow enterprises, other ideas from its source to its destination 
to bring about the success of the section. It is only necessary for 
the purpose of illustrating this with clearness to refer to the 
prostration that confronted the South in the middle of the year 
1H66. We thought that w^e were not only at the end of our row as 
a people, but also that our agriculture was in its last throes. Prom 
every direction came the prediction that the largest cotton crop 
that the South had ever grown had been grown, and that the sup- 
ply was far bey(md the demand, and yet we are today growing 
crops four and five times as large as the crops prior to 1865. 

It shows that those energies that had brought about that first 
period were simply reasserting themselves with redoubled force 
under the trying conditions of those subsequent years, showing 
that in the people of the South, the people of the original South, 
there still existed those elements that had made them so success- 
ful in their early history. In restoring her agricultural prosper- 
ity and commanding position under the changed conditions that 
presented themselves to the South, we became impressed with 
the necessity of diversity of production, and the South has seen 
more clearly each year since the necessity of having more than 
one crop to depend upon. Year by year from the agricultural pe- 
riodicals, from the rostrums and from the conventions of agricul- 
tural bodies, and from the most practical writers upon agricultu- 
ral subjects, has been preached the necessity of diversity to our 
agricultural prosperity — diversity has been the foremost theme — 
and we are here today in obedience to that demand for diversity 
to find companion crops for that king of crops in the South, cotton. 



We have this to do, and each one of us has got to assist in de- 
veloping that diversity, and the Federal government to the extent 
that it can assist us in thiit; development will assist us. Secretary 
Wilson has come here today for the purpose of mingling with you 
and hearing from your own Hps— you who are practically fresh 
from the farms — and to study all of these various questions to 
their last analysis, and to carry back with him to Washington the 
impressions you make upon him, with a view to giving you that 
aid; that continual and substantial aid that a man can give who is 
at the head of the Agricultural Department of your country. 

But he, of course, cannot do it all. You have got to do your 
part. He is not here to do for you, but to co-operate with you to 
the extent that his official position will admit. 

The agriculture of the South is undoubtedly today attracting 
more attention in Washington and at the hands of the Federal 
government than at any time in the past. The general interest 
that the South is attracting all over the country has naturally 
attracted their attention to it, and in the broad ideas of our present 
Secretary of Agriculture there is no such thing as the South in 
the disposition of the advantages of tlie department from which 
proceeds the knowledge represented by this great agricultural 
interest in the President's cabinet. 

In the development of our agriculture and the inducement of 
diversity, it has been a most needed thing for the South to take 
hold of this tfiought. We make the raw material and we export it 
to est.tblishments that manufacture it in our own country and 
others and then ship it back to us. We have diversity in crops 
now, and we have time and the necessary capital, have had it ever 
since we began to diversify in 1865, to put into other directions, 
now why should we not take the raw material that we produce and 
develop it ourselves? That idea of development is a picture pre- 
sented to you in the industrial development of the South. 

Now, this idea that has come to have life and substance about 
there being a new South. The people who have formulated that idea 
are among those who were in the South prior to 1865, and you have 
here within a stone's throw you might almost say of this hall one of 
the most practical illustrations of this idea. In 1869 JamesHamilton 
Couper, a resident of this county, a man foremost in his day as a 
scientist and agriculturist carried the manufacture of syrup to the 
very highest extent that it had been carried up to that time, and 
even up to the period of within two decades past. The old mill out 
here at Hopeton represented ideas in the manufacture of syrup 
that were foremost up to 1880. Mr. Couper also suggested the 
idea of boiling with steam, and that is even now the process by 
which syrup is produced in the most economical manner from the 
juices of the cane. I might cite a number of instances of the same 
kind to show you that while we were a pastoral people, an agricul- 
cultural people, the seeds of manufacturing enterprise were being 
sown and germinating long before the date of the picture that is 
presented to us here of a new development of the South. But these 
illustrations will occur to all of you. These, illustrations are all 
around you. 

10 



1 might go and tell you the number of spindles in the 
south today as compared with what there was here twenty, 
hirty, forty years ago; I might go on and tell of other manu- 
facturing enterprises that have grown here, and in their 
growth have startled the world, showing the enterprise, energy, 
thrift, economy and management of the southern people. 
They show this, and this has been the object of my appearing 
before you. 

It shows that we are not living in a new south, but that 
we are living in a south that has developed, and is still contin- 
uing to develop, ideas that found existence in this country and 
this section before 1865, and are just new reaching their full 
development. There is reason for the utmost pride on our 
part as southerners in recurring to these things, but I do nbt 
mean for one instant to exclude from the brawn and energy 
and muscle which have given such impetus to this development 
of those who have come into our midst from other sections and 
are today in this work. We owe to them a debt that we 
can only repay by extending to them the right hand of fellowship 
and citizenship, and making them as much a part of the new south 
as we are now a part of one and an inseparable Union. 

I do not mean to refer invidiously to any of those who have 
come here and helped us with our development; I do not mean to 
refer to the nationalties of the men (^r to the sections from which 
they have come, but all who have come in our midst, all who have 
become a part of this south country since 1865, are as much en- 
titled to-credit for what has been done as any of us who have been 
born and reared upon this soil. They have sh^wn us good citizen- 
ship, they have shown us good work, and I give them for that the 
fullest meed of praise. 

But it is the development that belongs to this section that 
they have come and participated in. They have brought new ideas 
here that, in operation with our own, have brought to a successful 
conclusion some of the greatest problems that face us today. No 
man living can teU what is going to be the end of this development, 
and no man can tell down the years when this section shall be as 
great and prosperous, agriculturally, as great and prosperous in 
manufactures, and as great and prosperous tinancially as any sec- 
tion of this our common country; and no man can tell, with the 
flow of population into this section, and the changes that are going 
on. the political conventions that this country may hold, or the po- 
litical power we may wield in effecting the future of this great 
continental world power that we have created in the course of a few 
years out of the wilderness. 

Now,. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: I am to be fol- 
lowed by a gentleman in turn who will specifically attract your at- 
tention to lines of development, either one in itself meaning untold 
wealth for our section. I can safely now leave you, having at- 
tracted your attention to the general subject, to those who are 
learned in the development of the specific and various lines to be 
brought before this convention. 

The Chair: Ladies and Gentlemen: There is no department 
of this great national government which touches the neonle sn 

11 



closely (with the exception perhaps of the post-office department 
of the government) as the agricultural department. It has been 
from the day of its organization of vast benefit not only to the ag- 
ricultural interests of the country, but to the entire interests of 
the country; and it is not too much to say— because it is the ver- 
dict of the people of this country — that the present head of that 
department has done more than any other incumbent of that office 
for the benefit of the people of this entire country. He has taken 
a deep interest in South Georgia and Florida, and he has sent rep- 
resentatives of that department through this section to examine 
your soils. He has recommended an appropriation for the pur- 
pose of an experimental station for the development of improved 
lines of agriculture. When the promise came to us that he v^ould 
be here and participate in the proceedings of this convention, we 
were glad; and when the mournful news came that his son was 
stricken down and was dangerously ill, and that he might be pre- 
vented from coming, mingled withour disappointment was intense 
sympathy for this representative of this department. He is here 
with us today and we are proud to welcome him, and I am proud 
of the opportunity to introduce him to this audience — Hon. James 
Wilson, our Secretary of the Department of Agriculture. 

Mr. Wilson: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I came 
here to learn something about your interests. I think I should 
not have been called upon to say a single word, because you all 
know so much more than I do about it. I would have been pleased 
to sit still and listen and take notes with regard to where you are, 
and then to do what little might lie in my power to help you along 
these lines, but you want me to say something to you no doubt 
about what we are willing to do up there at Washington. 

After I made up my estimates last October for the Congress 
of the United States with regard to what moneys would be neces- 
sary to carry on the work of the Department of Agriculture and 
help the people in all sections of the country, word came to me that 
the people of South Georgia and Florida, South Alabama, and the 
regions round about, had a new industry regarding which they 
needed a little help. I at once made inquiry as to what it was pos- 
sible for the Agricultural Department to do. 

I had known that you made here a fine article of syrup, and I 
know very well the deep prejudice that exists in the minds of the 
American people against what is adulterated. I knew that the 
world would be much more pleased to be able to get your syrup 
than the ordinary syrups of commerce, of doubtful origin. And 
the question came up whether the Agricultural Department could 
help with regard to making a uniform product, so that when the 
people of the world sent orders here for syrup, they would know 
about the article that they would get. 

I didn't need any more talking to. I at at once sent an esti- 
mate to the chairman of the committee in the House stating that 
I wanted twenty thousand dollars to help the people of this section 
m.ake uniform syrup; and I also told Mr. Purse and some other 
gentlemen that we never lobbied for a bill in working for the peo- 
ple, for if our work wouldn't speak for itself, then it would have to 
go. And so the matter has gone along to where we find it now. 

12 



1 heard the letters read from your senators and from your 
home congressman, Mr. Brantley, and I was pleased to hear them. 
Mr. Brantley has called upon me repeatedly, and I am well satis- 
tied that these people are at work in congress. The means where- 
by will be able to help you are coming through your own friends, 
not mine. I never go before congress to lobby fcr anything. The 
people can call upon their representatives, because the represen- 
tatives are under some obligations to the people. So your matter 
is in as good condition as we can hope to have it. 

Just how this work is to be done, I don't know. Whatever it 
is thouQ-ht best to do, we will do. The House of Representatiyes 
has {igrepd to give so much money, if it is not enoiigh, we will ask 
the Scnato for more; but we have enough to make a gooci beginning. 
How long it will take to do this work, I d(m't know. We will make 
a beginning as soon as the bill is passed. I will then sit down 
with the s ^ientists of the Department and find out what is the best 
thing to do. If it is best to continue through the experiment sta- 
tions already established in the South v/e will do that, or if it is 
best to establish a station of our own, we will do that. We will 
have your interests in view beyond the dollars, and will do what- 
ever is best for you to have done. And I will say for the scientists 
of the Department that they are right in the front rank in their 
specialties. 

I will say a word about the men there. We have two thousand 
scientists, practically agriculturists. We have fifteen other peo- 
ple, but they don't count. It is the scientist, the man who studies 
the special features, in certain special directions, that is doing 
good work, and you will be surprised to learn that it is not the 
universities and colleges of the land that are furnishing us the men 
that we need to do this work. This is an educational line that is 
today somewhat new. We take men tliere from Harvard, Prince- 
ton, Yale, John Hopkins, and other universities, and find that they 
cannot do the work, and we educate them so that they can do the 
work that we want done. We teach them many things. No man 
admires a cla^ssically educated man more than I do, but I cannot 
use him in my business. A man came to me who had been educa- 
ted for the Senate and wanted a place in my work, and I asked him 
if he knew anything about the biology, chemisti-y and physiology 
of the plants we were growing there, and he said he did not know; 
then I asked him if he could analyze the juices of a growing plant, 
and he said he never heard of such a thing; so you see we have to 
take them there and educate them for our work. And the men 
we have there love their work, and take an interest in it. One man 
I have who is getting $1800.00 a year, was offered $7,000.00 a year 
to teach in a coUege and he wouldn't take it. We have many men 
there getting $1800.00 a year that could easily get more, but they 
stay ther^. A New York man trying to get for one of the univer- 
sities a man wlio could teach plant physiology and pathology, but 
he couldn't find one! There hadn't been any educated; all there 
were, we had in the Agricultural Department, where we had edu- 
cated them ourselves. The^^-e was one man came there deter- 
mined to get one of our men, and he offered two of them $10,000.00 
a year, and they were only getting $3,000.00, and neither of them 

13 



would go. There are 260 young men in the department studying 
science now. That is where we get our scientists. We train them. 
We have forty picked young men studying forestry. It is only a 
question of time when your forests down here will be denuded of 
their trees. When that time comes let me know, and if I haven't 
gone back to my own country then, I will send you down some men 
who know something about forestry. We have forty young men 
studying soils. There is no college or university that teaches any- 
body anything about soils. It simply has not up to the present 
time occurred to anybody that there was anything in the study of 
the soil that people walked on, but this is coming to be a question 
with you. Why, it was mentioned today by one of the gentlemen 
who spoke, thisquestion of soil, and proposing to diversify crops 
in Georgia. It is the best conclusion you have ever reached, and 
when you talk about growing valuable sugar, and this cassava you 
talk about, you want to know what soil conditions suit them best 
We are training forty young men to know that soil, and we have 
just sent out men to investigate the soils of twenty-five States in 
the Union for the purpose of teUing the people what quality is this 
soil and of that. When I tell you of these achievements in the de- 
partment, you wiU remember that they are being done by the 2 000 
scientists of the department, not by me. The department can 
only act as fast as these 2,000 men educate me. Do you know 
why one sugar sehs for one price and one for another? No you 
do not, and you are weU read. Has anybody ever inquired into the 
matter of the aroma of tobacco? The tobacco industry is a c^reat 
industry. We sell $30,000,000 worth of tobacco every year which 
IS cheap stuff, and we buy $14,000,000 of valuable wrappers 
What IS the difference between the tobacco we sell and the tobacco 
we buy? There is not a scientist in the department that knows 
but they have done some studying on it. You can go to these to- 
bacco growers that we have imported from Cuba, down in Florida- 
or the tobacco growers in Cuba, and ask one of them what flavors 
the tobacco. He wiU tell you he doesn't know. Ask him what is 
the characteristic of the soil to make the best tobacco and he 
doesn't know. Ask him what he knows about tobacco, and he wih 
tell you he knows what his father taught him. What did he know'^ 
What his grandfather taught him. We have taken up this question 
of the flavor of tobacco to find out what it is, and we have first un- 
dertaken to see whether bacteria has anything to do with the fla- 
vor, and we have found that it has nothing to do with the flavorink' 
of tobacco, while it has everything to do with the flavoring of but- 
ter products. We had one man who could analyze the juices of ? 
hvmg plant, and this man began experimenting, and he found 
there was a ferment in the tobacco leaf . One kind of tobacco has 
<me ferment, and you get a certain result; another kind has another 
and you get a different result; and so far as we have gone we sus' 
pect strongly that these ferments'have everything to do 'with the 
production of the several brands of tobacco. The Japanese camp 
and gave that man $7,000 a year and took him away to Japan and 
I cannot get anybody now to take up that work.; I have sent around 
to all the best graduates of the agricultural coUeges in Chemistrv 
and I went to John Hopkins', where a man had got a doctor's de- 

14 



gree. I sent for him and he could not analyze the juices of a living 
plant. Said he had never heard of such a thing. But I never v^as 
so interested in anything in my life, and I kept at work until I got 
tv^o good men together, and they went to work, and we are now 
getting to where we can see through the question, and we propose 
to find out how to produce that $8,000,000 worth of tobacco which 
we have every year to buy. We know something about the pro- 
ducing of the Sumatra wrapper, and by bringing about here simi- 
lar conditions to those under which the tobacco is grown in Suma- 
tra, we can cut off that source of outflow. We propose, when we 
get these men fully educated, to go on with that progress which 
we have already made. My object is to ascertain what is neces- 
sary to be done by us here, so it can be produced here, and give 
work to people to produce it: and it won't be long, with the help 
we can give you in developing it, before right in this country you 
will be able to produce the best syrup in the world. And the De- 
partment wiU bring to bear all the power we have got to help such 
a people as this. 

Now brother, you are somewhere along in the nighborhood of 
developments that I have seen in other parts of this country in my 
younger days. I have been forty-six or forty-seven years in the 
State of Iowa. We went there in 1855 and began growing wheat. 
We grew it and grew it until the land would grow wheat no more. 
The farmers said, well here we are with a soil that refuses to grow 
wheat any more, what are we going to do? You heard the word 
that was spoken by Mr. Purse. We found that we must diversify 
Our crops. We found that we must do something else, and what 
did we do? We went into the dairy business. Where there are 
common cows, a dairyman said there the other day, that all you 
have got to do is to get a lot of common cows, and after awhile 
some of the cows will give splendid milk and some will get fat; 
send the fat ones to the butcher and get milk from the others, and 
you have a profitable business. That is the way, and you have got 
to that point. Throughout the great corn belt last year there was 
a drought, and the corn was cut off about one-third, in some cases 
more; and these people having stock to feed in the ranches out 
west there, sent to Georgia and Alabama and other cotton growing 
States and took your cotton seed meal to fatten their steors, and 
then sent them to Chicago and had the meat butchered and sent 
down here to you to buy. That won't do. I am a Georgian today, 
and I am going to talk from the standpoint of a Georgian. You 
have more cotton seed meal than would fatten all the cows that we 
send to foreign countries, and we send something over $40,000,000 
worth every year. 

I will tell you what the Danes are d(^ing also, and you can do 
that and more here. I tell you the old grit is still in, the south, 
gentlemen: The people of Denmark live from a very x)oor, rocky 
soil, but they raise pretty good men. They come to Iowa and get our 
corn and feed it to the Danish cow, and they get your cotton seed 
meal and feed it to the Danish cow, and they get the by-product 
that follows, and every year they sell in the British market from 
$33,000,000 to $35,000,000 worth of butter and cheese. Now, 
brother of the south, I think you can be in better business than 

15 



raising cow feed for the Danes. I really think you can do a little 
better than that. There is not a country on earth reached by rail 
or water, but wants your cotton seed meal. You can sell the tibre 
to the world, that is all right. You sent abroad $315,000,000 worth 
from the ports of the Southern States last year, and got from 
nine to ten cents for it on an average, and you did not send any of 
the strength of your soil with it hardly when you sent it away. It 
is nearly all a combination of wind and weather and sunshine. It 
is all right to go on selling the oil from your cotton seed because 
that too comes from the wind and weather and sunshine, and the 
South has sunshine to spare. But it is a great mistake to sell the 
cotton seed meal and rob the ground. You will exhaust your soil, 
and sooner or later you will learn that you must not do this. You 
have another great advantage that I have been impressed with 
year by year, and that is the great value to you of the South in 
your sunshine in the winter. Up North we have to take domestic 
animals and put them in staUs and warm shelters for a long time 
during the winter, four or five months. Now you don't have that 
to do here, but you can by growing proper forage, plants that 
naturally grow in your climate, you can let your cattle out all 
winter, and do work in the winter time that we cannot do North. 
The Northern market never has enough of early spring lamb. 
You can grow spring lambs ready for market, just as you can 
grow strawberries and other things ready for the market before 
the frost is out of the ground in our country in the spring. Very 
often the markets at the North have to import spring lambs from 
foreign countries. They have to have them and they are some- 
thing very expensive. Another thing that I saw that I was very 
much interested in. They were a couple of very thin hogs. And 
I asked an agriculturalist what these were. He told me that these 
were the hogs from which were made the Smithfield hams, that 
h il from two to five cents a pound more than the hams we raise 
that are corn fed. Yes sir, you can do that right here. You can 
make that kind of product. We make lots of hogs but we cannot 
make that kind of meat. There is no other in the world that 
equals it. Another thing, and that is horses. Fine horses. 
London wants 125,000 horses every year. They want hunting 
horses. The Englishman likes to get on a horse which he is proud 
of, and he will pay any price for them. And they want that kind 
of horses for the interior of Europe. We can raise draft horses 
and once in a while a good carriage horse. But we do not know 
how to produce the kind of horses that you know so well down here 
how to produce, the thoroughbred horse, That is the foundation 
of the best cavalry horse, and hunting horse, and high stepping 
horse. Thoroughbred horses. Raise them, that is something you 
Southern men can do. And another thing you have that we have 
not. You have means of communication by water with the ports 
of the world, you have the broad ocean and numerous deep rivers 
that can carry your products. We have no rivers there. The 
Mississippi itself goes so dry in the summer time that the Ixjys 
wade it. You have twice the rainfall that we have in the northwest, 
and because of that we have a different soil. The soil of the north- 
west does not wash away because it does not get rainfall enough. 

16 



You are in dano-er of having your hills wash away simply because 
you have so much more rainfall. You have the heat and the mois- 
ture here which are the prime factors in the growth of any plant. 
You have both here, and one studying agriculture must not take 
pattern too much after a people who live in different conditions. 
But you must study the questions from your own standpoint, and 
there is abundant prom'se and abundant results. I would not 
allow the cattle of the South to come out to the grass in the spring 
as they have come out this spring and as they have usually come 
out, but I would feed them during the winter a little of your cotton 
seed meal, and then in the spring when the grass comes out you 
can have them ready for the market in two months with your 
cotton seed meal, and the benefit of it is never taken away from 
the soil. Let the dairy cow be the center of the farm system. 
There is nothing more profitable that you can have for yourself, 
and for marketing tbe milk, and butter and beef. And poultry and 
sheep and hogs. All along these lines the South must, and can, 
and will i^rosper. Now with regard to the matters specially of 
cassava and sugar cane. This cassava has been grown to some 
considerable extent in Florida and to some extent in Georgia, and 
you are here now proposing to grow that cassava. Now, cotton 
seed meal is not a complete ration by itself. It requires a carbo- 
naceous nutrient in addition. Will Professor Stockbridge tell us 
the per cent, of nutrient ration there is in cassava? [Mr. Stock- 
bridge: 11*2.] That is a little higher than corn. You cannot 
raise a young animal on corn or on cassava. There is not enough 
nitrogen in either of them. Now it is proposed to grow this velvet 
bean in connecticm with the cassava to give the nutrient that is 
necessary in connection with it for feeding. You cannot compete 
with the man in the Northwest in growing corn or meal. But you 
can grow cassava. I am not prepared to say which is cheaper, but 
there is room for both. Cassava can have its place on the farm 
just as corn has in Iowa. We find it necessary in feeding the dairy 
cow to give her something besides corn, and you wiU find that it is 
necessary to feed something besides cassava, because a growing 
animal requires a richer ration than cassava is. The milk of the 
dam is the perfect ration for the young animal; that as a nutrient 
ration runs about 103 to 105 or 106 or in some animals a little more 
than that. We must observe these rations. Of course the velvet 
bean is an excellent thing to balance the cassava — excellent. The 
peculiar value, it occurs to me, that you wiU find in the velvet bean 
will be to reach down in the earth and bring up and put back in the 
soil the organic matter that has washed down there out of the soil. 
The roots of the leguminous plants reach down and bring up into 
the soil the organic matter. Many of the plants do not go down 
that far. You will find it an excellent thing I think to plant the 
velvet beans and then put the plants all but the bean back on th© 
soil. We had an excelllent illustration cf that last year in the 
Northwest when the corn fields were suffering from the drought. 
Where the crop had been grown year after year it had retained no 
moisture apparently, but where the field had been put in pasture 
occasionally instead of being cultivated steadily the corn prospered 
much better. The soil that had the mo^t organic matter in it 

17 



retained the moisture best. We found that to be true there and it 
is true everywhere, and these conditions obtain in the South just 
as in the North. So you cm plant your cassava which brings the 
nitrogen from the atmosphere and fixes it in the soil, and which 
is a fattener, and plant your velvet bean or other leguminous crop 
which goes deep down into the soil and brings up the organic 
matter to the surface. In addition to the cassava you will find 
that you will need a certain amount of roughage in connection with 
the cassava whether it is for feeding the dairy animals or animals 
doing hard work. You will need both the carbonaceous and the 
nitrogeneous plant to mak:" a proper ration. And I should think 
that you would find the byproduct of your starch m'lls a very 
valuable product along the line of roughage, and perhaps the by- 
product of the sugar mills. I had an inquiry from a gentleman in 
Louisiana in the cotton business last year as to what he should feed 
with his cotton seed meal, and I told him whatever was most im- 
mediately available; and he mentioned several things. He told me 
that he wanted to experiment with the byproduct of his cane mill, 
that is carbonaceous in the extreme. There has never been any 
very successful effort to make any use of the byproduct of your 
cane mills, although in one part of Texas they make paper out of it, 
and if you can find a way to feed it to your domestic animals to 
balance the ration that is more nitrogenous you will find it very 
valuable. You must keep your cotton seed meal in the South to 
cultivate your fields, but the way in which you will get most money 
out of it, is to feed it to your domestic animals, and in that way the 
soil loses no part of its value. If you keep selling it off, you will 
keep taking the organic matter away from your soils and if you 
keep up that repetition kmg enough your soil will not make a 
profitable crop. Keep as many animals as you can keep and until 
they use aU of the cotton seed meal you have got. Don't let any- 
body have any of it. Don't let the Danes have any of it. The 
farmers in Iowa do not need money to move our crops when they 
are harvested. We are lending money to New York; and you can 
do the same because nature has done more for you than she has 
for Iowa. 

I note a few things that may be of interest to you about what 
the Agricultural Department is doing along through the Southern 
territory. It is pleasant to be associated, even in a limited way, 
with the growth of this Southern section. A few years ago the 
Department was working on the cotton of the South, particularly 
the sea island cotton in South Carolina; and I wiU teU you what 
one of our scientists did. There was a fungus growth coming on 
the cotton just a little above the surface, and destroying the cotton. 
We sent a scientist down there to look into it. The first year he 
reported the condition, and that he had found nothing to remedy 
it. Then we commenced to cross fertilize and hybridize the cot- 
ton so that we would get a plant proof against this trouble. We 
kept plant pathologists on those lands for four years, and then we 
found relief from those conditions. We buy six and a half million 
dollars w^orth of Egyptian cotton every year. We have been at 
work to find if there is any place in the United States where this 
cotton. wiU grow, and there is a good prospect of success along 

13 



these lines, and we have begun hybridizing the sea island cotton 
with the upland cotton, so that if there is anywhere that the sea 
island cotton will not grow, the hybrid will. So you see that we 
are going to be of some advantage to the cotton grower along these 
lines. It is not many years ago since the calla lily had to be im- 
ported from foreign countries, mostly from Holland. The Depart- 
ment at Washington sent these lilies about until today we produce 
all we need. But we do not produce the easter lily successfully, 
and we are trying in four States of this Union today to find where 
we can grow that bulb successfully. We selected North Carolina 
and Louisiana to begin with. It costs our people many tens of 
thousands of dollars to buy these lilies to please the ladies — and 
the ladies deserve them — but we want them grown at home. There 
is nothing unpatriotic about the American women that I have ever 
^ seen, only they do want the lilies. Several years ago the people of 
," Florida had a frost. The north wind came down on them and not 
^ oaly killed the fruit, but killed the very trees. The Department 
"^i t'len set to work to see if we could not produce a hardier orange 
■jj t L-ee. We hybridized the Florida orange with the Japanese variety, 
^ and we have five thousand young hybrid plants growing, now 
■^ awaiting for the results. The Japanese is a variety of orange that 
•^?:' will grow as high as Philadelphia, but the fruit is sour. And from 
I the growing of these hybrids, we have found several things. For 
'^ one thing, we have several bright hedge plants that will keep green 
;;,; through the winter. And if we get one sweet orange from that 
I five thousand young hybrids, it will revolutionize the growing of 
•<: oranges in the South, because when the frost comes it will kill the 
n blossom or fruit, but it will not kill the tree. We may not get one 
H from this five thousand plants, and if so, then we can hybridize 
I again with the Florida orange and leave a smaller per cent of the 
'^ Japanese variety. 

"i As I have said before, I have been looking the question over, 

' 1 and I have come to the conclusion that you people in the South 
^'1 must get to the dairy cow, and you will come to it by and by. It 
|j is the successful center of the farming system. You may start 
;«i now with raising your dairy cows with your cotton seed meal, and 
'I thereby keeping the valuable part of the cotton seed meal for your 
'I soil, to go back to it. And you must quit selling your cotton seed 
meal, and raise beef and dairy products and sell them on the mar- 
ket instead. 

Looking the problem of labor over here, I find that you have 
as cheap labor as there is in the world. In South Carolina there 
is an experiment going on between a private citizen and the Fed- 
eral government. The United States is prepared to furnish the 
money for se^^eral years to help along that experiment. Your col- 
ored people, from seven to twelve and fourteen years, work there, 
and they are engaged in the growing of tea. They don't get big 
wages, of course, but they get something, enough to help the old 
folks along. I consider that it is only a question of time when you 
Southern people grow all of the tea that is wanted in the United 
States. I was reading a story by Carpenter telling how they 
packed tea in Ceylon. * They don't pack it with machinery, hut % 

19 



k 



fellow goes into it with his feet and tramps it down — and it is warm 
weather up there. 

And right along that same line, I have been thinking that you 
have labor here that could be detached from the mills — your col- 
ored people — to pick mulberry leaves for the cultivation of the silk 
worm. We pay some fifty millions of dollars per year to foreign 
countries for silk, and you have just as cheap labor here, and more 
effective, I think, than the world has. There is no reason why you 
should not grow mulberry trees, and I am glad to tell you that 
there is today a colony of Italians living in South Carolina and 
making silk, and I propose to encourage them. They needed live 
thousand mulberry trees to plant this year for the purpose, and I 
promptly furnished them with the live thousand trees. We 
produce hardly any silk at all. We buy the raw material and man- 
ufacture it here, and I propose that we shall produce that raw ma- 
terial. We are manufacturing it now. And the Department has 
found that the growing of rice can be profitably increased and 
helped in the South, and our Department is doing all it can to help 
out the rice industry. Oar Department is now helping people in 
Louisiana and Texas to grow rice that is suitable to their condi- 
tions there;, and that can be prepared with modern machinery. 
Four years ago we produced twenty-five per cent of our own rice. 
Next year we will begin to export rice, and it will give these peo- 
ple a market for their rice, so that they will not be compelled to 
perpetually raise one crop. A senator told me one day that they 
were sending out hay at an immense cost to the military in the 
Phillipines to feed the horses and mules there. I am going to send 
one of our men out there to show them what they can do in the 
way of raising hay there for the horses and mules. He will easily 
be able to furnish some kind of hay that can be readily and suc- 
cessfully grown by the people there, without the extra e: p 3nse of 
importing it. He is going out there to solve that problem for the 
War Department. 

And there is a danger which is threatening the cotton in the 
So«th. It is the Mexican Boll evil. We have got an appropriation 
from congress, and we are going to come down here and try to ex- 
terminate. It is a very serious evil that is threatening, and it 
shows the danger of the farmers putting all of their eggs into one 
basket. 

Such a thing as an insect pest can change the character of a 
whole country by taking everything away that it attacks, before 
the scientists can learn how to resist it. A few years back a 
pest of some kind attacked the coffee trees of Java. There was no 
scientist there that knew anything about it, and they only got rid 
of them when every coffee tree in Java was destroyed. Sometimes 
it is necessary to entirely stop growing a crop in order to alto- 
gether get rid of a pest. This danger is threatening the South 
now. I have asked congress to give me the money, and they have 
given me the money, and we will do all that we can to stop it. 
And there is another thing that is threatening the South, and that 
is that nicignificent range of mountains known as the Appalachian 
range, from Georgia to West Virginia, is being denuded of its 
trees. Most of your streams rise in these mountains, and if the 

20 



destruction goes on you will have no streams in the summer time, 
as it is the trees and the tree roots that hold the rains. I visited 
them last summer and saw the danger, and I asked cengress to 
appropriate five million dollars to begin with to put trees back on 
these mountain tops. Let the people that live there now stay 
there and manage these forests. They have lived there where 
they are for nearly two hundred years, and they are a bright, 
manly, hospitable people. I have gone to these people and asked 
for a dipper to go the spring — all the houses are near a spring — 
and they would invariably offer me a glass of milk. It was not 
very much, but the effect on me was the same as if a man had of- 
fered me a diamond. 

And there is a great deal in believing in your country. I went 
to Cahfornia two or three years ago. A great many of them asked 
me if I didn't think it was the greatest vState in the Union. I told 
them it was a great State. They said, "Don't you think it is the 
greatest? We think it is the best. ' ' And everybody there insisted 
on our saying it was the best. I have got the profoundest faith 
in your climatic conditions and the soil of your country, and I am 
now looking for a man who has got as much faith in Brunswick as 
I have. Have you got it? 

Now, I have been saying something of our work in the South, 
but our scientists are active also in the North, and all over the 
United States. They are helping the Northwest in the raising of 
corn, and in the prairies of the West the trees are springing up. 
They are studying these desert lands with the greatest care and 
under all conditions, so as to make them no more desert but fer- 
tile fields. And we are watching all the time for these things that 
we have to import from foreign countries to see if we cannot as 
well or better grow them at home; and thus we are in fact a finan- 
cial branch of the Government, for on whatever agricultural pro- 
duct we find that the balance of trade is against us, we at once de- 
termine that this product which is imported from foreign coun- 
tries shall be grown at home. And this is being accomphshed by 
these men that we are educating as scientists in order that they 
do this work. The President instructs me to watch the advance 
lines of that struggle of commerce, and build up at home the 
growth of those things that are against us; and from those two 
thousand scientists that we have in the Department, and the men 
we are educating there to do this work, we are getting wonderful 
financial work in the way of improving the balance of trade with 
foreign countries. 

Dr. Burroughs: It is seldom that Brunswick has been visited 
by so prominent an officer as Secretary Wilson, or has had the op- 
portunity of listening to so thoroughly wise a talk, and I offer a 
resolution, Mr. President and gentlemen, that the thanks of the 
Convention be extended to the Commissioner of Agriculture for 
his visit here, and for his able, interesting and instructive address. 

Upon the resolution offered by Dr. Burroughs being put be- 
fore the meeting, the same was adopted unanimously by a rising 
vote. 

21 



1. C. Wade, Industrial Agent Southern Railway, was intro- 
duced, and spoke as foUows: 

In the discussion of this question the first query that comes to our mind is 
presenl condition; second, Can we better it? If. so- how? Third, results. With 
th*.s^ three problems given us et us see as to their solution, 
these th " Pro^'j;^^ g ^ condition: Let me give vou as the result o my 

HtVnn in thrritv where 1 live-Atlanta-compiled from most reliable re- 
sourcef r foUowi'ngar'tictsr shipped in annually fro'm the North and West, at 
wholesale prices: 

«,,f,7^«^'' 500,000 ?b"frtT8l-ems ^ ^^ 

Kg^' •;::::::::::::::;:::: 558xk)o do., at le cents , ••■ ^i^;^ 

llTtlsu ::::;:;::;:::w^ibs:at6'V cents::;;::::::::::::::::.: -253.500 

pf.rk fr/ah 1.040,000 lbs. at 9 cents *i?f'fi^ 

K^S^ed;:::::::::::: i-^-^ lb" at tS^ ::::::::::::: sfiS 

K^!^^cts:;:;:::::;::::::::::::::SSl^-ti^^v/;.v.- _«! 

Mutton, lambs 15,500 animals at J3 



910,000 
46,900 



11,436,080 



Thus vou will sec that the Gate City pavs $1,436,080 for cattle, hogs, sheep 

thafthe; ma'kertolaTagg^^^^^^ of over fifteen million of dollars for these two 
statts N^w add to thit-a fortune for several states if kept at home-all the 

f^l^i^^^:^^ isic^^K't^^t^n 'i^,^^^ :^^^ p? 

S HaS-y.^^^ -v^? K^Isi's^^ J^b^X si J^^ 
-fm^roper cultivSn^ terracing, lack of care of home f«^^;"^;,^^^',^f^^^ °^„ ^^.-^^j,"^ 
to wash millions of wealth in the humus of our soils '"/« ^he Atla" 'c ocean ^"^ 
r.i^fof Mexico which we vainly try to replace by buying commercial fertilizers, 
whin by The proVrise of this, ''the highest type of agriculture"-stock raising- 
we not only saye this great expenditure, but we can slowly and surely fdd a vas 
h^crement to ouragricultural lands in the .hape of humus rom digested food of 
Ltock that s now wasted on Western plains or utilized by Western farmers So I 
J?v takfa 11 of thela go-with-its into consideration and we can safely say that these 
?wo staus are losing^oy^r fifty millions or dollars annually. Now, what country 
can stand such a drain on her material resources? 

«sprnnd— Can we better our condition; and if so, howf • ,^ ^^, 

It Is an attempt to show, at least, the answer to this great agricultural 

nr.hl.m that I hav? been working for nearly three years, collating my evidence 

from the standpoint of a stockman (for that has been my business nearly all of my 

S and am niw ready to give you the net results of my investigations and con- 

o six months in the North and the thermometer in the region of zero a large par of 
th. time Neady all of our country will grow, so savs the cotton raiser, tha king 
nf nlTture ^ris-the bermuda. All sections will raise corn, and nearly al that 
?■ ^ !t f^rfo.?nlant^-alfa fa- whilst the well known cowpea, sorghums, vetches 
^in.^s Lnets^Lfteggarwe d gr^w from the mountain tops of the north 

iX' Sind ridges of^t^^^^^^^^ Whilst in the southern section we find that great 
r^vXtionizer of the stock growin business, the cassava and velvet bean, growing 
"rJrSy Now.'with these grtat meat producers given let us examine a little 
more critically their values: 

■22 



The better way, it seems to me, to get at this question would be to give a 
comparative table, as it is only by compirrisons we can arrive at the truth of a 
matter on such a subject. The following table is taken from Farmers' Bulletin No. 
2 of the Department of Agriculture, so it can be relied upon. Corn, oats and rye 
being common to both sections are not shown in the fir->t table. The same may be 
said of alfalfa, which is positively one of the most important if not the most im- 
portant forage plant, both in its green and dry state In its green state it ranks 
ahead of any other food in the matter of protein, having in 100 pounds of feeding 
stnff 3.89 pounds protein, 11.^0 carbohydrates, 1.38 fat. Probably red clover, 
Kentucky blue grass, and timothy stands the highest in the North. In the green 
state they have the following digestible ingredients in lOU pounds of feeding stuff: 

Cakbo- 

NORTH : AS GRASS I'ROTEIN HYDRATES FAT 

Red clover 3.07 14.82 .69 

Kentucky blue grass 3.01 19 83 .83 

Timothy 2.28 23.71 .77 

Hungarian grass 1.92 15.63 .3S 

Redtop. in bloom 2.06 21.24 .58 

Orchard grass 1.91 15.91 .58 

South : as grass— 

Soja Bean 2.79 11.82 .63 

Crimson clover 2 16 9.31 .44 

Cow pea 1,68 8.08 .25 

Bermuda grass, dry matter 33 2.6 14 8 .3 

Now these, in their dry state, or hay, yield as follows : 

R^dclover 6.58 35 35 1.66 

Kentucky blue grass 4.76 37.33 195 

Timothy 8.89 43.72 1.43 

Hungarian grass 4.50 51.67 1.34 

Redtop, in bloom 4.82 46.83 .95 

Orchard grass 4 78 41.99 1.40 

Six of the leading grasses of the South in their dry state, as follows: 

Carbo- 

Protkin Htdeates Fat 

Common vetch 25 14 35.26 4.53 

Bermuda grass 1150 45 (J9 1.34 

Johnson grass 10.11 44.77 2.43 

Crimson clover 10 49 38 13 1.29 

Cow pea 10.79 30.40 1.51 

Soja beans 10.78 38.72 1.54 

Bermuda, dry matter, 86.0 69 39.0 0.8 

Roots and all matters of silage can be produced In one section as well as 
another, hence no particular diff-rence. During the dry season Bermuda grass is 
away ahead of any grass I ever saw to stand a hot climate. Of course it does not 
do so well, and, in fact, is of no account during the winter months. But bluegrass 
and cane helps out in some sections. 

Now, let us look for a moment at this table which contains the grains, or 
feed for fattening. Corn is produced equally well in both sections. Corn, barley 
and linseed meal being the three princioal fattening products for stock in the North. 
The following is the table of digestible ingredients: 

Cakbo- 
FoR THE North Protei.n Hydrates Fat 

Corn meal 7.01 65.2 3.25 

Barley meal 7 36 62.88 1.36 

Linseed meal 28 76 32 81 7 05 

Now, the three best feeding grain products for fattening in the South are corn, 
cotton seed meal and peanut meal. We use cotton seed hulls as a dilutant being 
bulky, and whilst of itself having only .3 protein, 33.1 carbo-hydrates, 1,7 fat mixed 
with cotton seed meal makes nearly a balanced ration in th; proportion of 5 pounds 
of meal to 20 pounds of hulls and 10 pounds cow pea hay for a day's ration: 

Carbo- 

FoR the South Protein Hydrates Fat 

Corn 7.01 65.20 3.25 

Cotton seed meal 37.01 16. »2 12. .58 

Peanut meal 42.94 22.82 6.86 

By a comparison of these tables you will see that while we fall behind a little 
in green forage we so far excel in hay two and a half times and about the same in 
the fattening product. Let me say here in regard to cotton seed meal, it is, as a 
rule, 30 per cent, cheaper than corn meal and these being the two great fattening 
staple*, w« have this great advantage, hence by comparison we have a data to be 
relied upon and a comparison perfectly plain to be seen, so that the merest tyro can 
figure out for himself what it will cost for him to feed his animals. Now, with 

23 



these three essentials, forage, climate and the necessary food for fattening, with 
Bermuda grass and Johnson grass to back up the proposition farther, can anyone 
for a moment dispute the proposition that the South is far ahead in the necessities 
of life for cattle raising? The average hay per acre, see U. S. census, and 1 tai<e 
th« two best Northern states: Iowa 1,359, Illinois 1,230, North Carolina 1,420 and 

1 believe other states show the same as ISorth Carolina, and also note value accord- 
ing to digestible nutrients. Now then, if these are facts, what is necessary? And 
that they are facts, I wish to quote the following, taken from the Texas Cattle 
Raisers' Asiociation, who wanted to know the exact results: 

"The Experiment Station had six pens of seven steers each, in which they weighed 
exactly each amount of feed that was given per daj-. deihicting at nlglit every atom that was 
left in excess of any feeding. It is not necessary for the purpose of this article to give more 
than the results from pen No. 1. the others being similar, differentiated in a small degree, 
adding to or deducting from other feeds. This was given in the proportionate ratio of one 
ponnd of cotton seed meal to 5.5 pounds of hulls. In 100 days the cattle fed showed a gain of 
•271 pounds, at a cost of ^CSS'^-i. In other words, you make the meat on the animal at about 

2 cents a pound, besides the gain in the weight of the animal's original carcass, which would 
sell for double its first cost per poun i, as well as the gain of nearly three pounds a day, for 
about 2 cents a pound. (Of course for feeding dairy cows, I would feed only one-half as much 
meal, supplemented with some corn meal or oat meal)." 

We have a similar illustration of this same matter in Atlanta, where the feed- 
ing by Mr. T. R. Sawtell of several hundred steers, taken all the way from the 
wiregrass section to good Tennessee grade shorthorns, resulted in about the same 
proportion. One steer did so remarkably well that I quote the whole object lesson: 
The steer was bought on January 26th, last year, and ted ninety days. He weighed 
1,410 pounds, and being a remarkably well made animal cost 4 '4 cents per pound. 
Bay $6o,ic; at the end of the ninety days he weighed 1,780 pounds, and at the 
present market price would fetch $106.80, a gain in flesh of 370 pounds. Owing to 
the remarkable and unusual high cost of feed that winter, which was about double 
for hulls, cost 12 cents a dav, or S10.80 for the ninety days to feed him, which would 
leave a net proof of $3(5.90 on one steer. Mr. Sawtell has done this in proportion by 
the hundred, so that there is absolutely no question about it. But let me say just 
here, do not gather from the above that every one can do the same. It requires the 
same amount of brains to feed a steer profitably as it does to do any other kind of 
business. Unless he is bought right, that is, an animal that will take on beef 
instead of running to dairy points, it would be useless to try to make even a fair 
profit out of him. He must be in a healthy condition, and fed properly or he could 
not mak« these gains. As i may here remark, cotton seed meal will kill some 
animals, especially hogs, and is a detriment to any animal if fed in excess. They 
should start in at not over a pound or two per day, and ne\ er feed a steer over four 
or six pounds per animal, according to size and growth of animal. 1 know a man 
who decided last fall to feed cattle, and sent out his agent to buy in steers for him, 
or anything to feed. The agent was to have 50 cents a head fordoing the business. 
He bought everything he came to, all the way from billy goats to ten-year-old steers 
and cows. The result of it was that the animals were taken to the pen and the 
man, supposing that they would want so much a head, gave them cotton seed meal 
with the result that 85 per cent, of the.n died in less than sixty days. 1 only speak 
of this as showing how absolutely foolish some people can be on a plain proposition 
like feeding and caring for beef cattle. 

Along this line it would be difficult to put too much stress on cassaya root 
and its coadjutor, velvet bean. As far as the data I have at my command cassava 
shows that it stands something as sugar beets do in the North, but having many 
times the beet's nutrient value according to Bulletin No. 55 of Professor Stockbridge 
of the Flarida Agricultural Station, he proves that it is far better food for fattening 
animals than anything else we have in the South, and can be raised and harvested 
per acre for much less than corn; but probably could not be depended on North of 
32 30; but in southern Georgia and Alabama there seems to be no food known that 
ean be raised as economically, and fed with as great advantage to all kinds of stock. 
And with velvet bean ground and spread on the root makes it a perfect ration. It 
is also of great value in the manufacture of starch and a variety of foods for the 
human family. 

Now, with the foregoing statement of facts, what is the necessity of the hour 
for the furthering of the stock business in the South? 1 answer, it is a man with 
some brains and capital sufficient to buy pure bred bulls to use on the common stock 
of the country to grade them up into a fair degree of beef cattle, and use the feeds 
so abundantly to his hand. At present a majority of the southern cattle are of a 
very small type, and while they take on flesh rapidly at certain seasons of the year, 

24 



are rather small for good beef cattle. Hence, I say, eliminate the "scrub"— man 
and beast! To do this it is necessary to be cautious for it is well known that aged 
cattle brought in from the North, north of the quarantine line, will not do well in 
the South. Hence, I would make the suggestion, if the purchaser would go to 
Texas, in that section south of the quarantine line, being on the same line as our- 
selves, buying the calf crop of some of the large ranches, bring them to our southern 
localities, use the bulls on our common best type of beef heiters, and bring as many 
beef type of heifers as he can afford to buy. This latter will soon give him a herd 
of good growing beef cattle. Where he has not as much monev, he can buy, using 
proper judgment in making his selections, all the beef she-kind of cattle he is able 
to, and then buv him a pure-bred bull of the best Hereford, Shorthorn or Polled 
Angus type. Personally, I think the Herefords would be a little the better on 
account of their grazing makeup, but either will do. He can thus soon build him 
up a beef herd. I have, however, taken up tne question of inoculation with our 
several state experimental stations, and they offer to inoculate pure-bred cattle free 
of charge. 

In order to show something of the net profits in the cattie feeding business, 
taking the present prices today, I will give two tables to show the difference between 
our average steer that we have here, and what we could have in two crosses from a 
pure-bred Hereford or Shorthorn sire. Take, for example, the first table. 

An ordinary country steer at two and one-half years old will weigh about 
500 pounds, the highest price for which would be two cents per pound. A good 
ration for him would be, per day: 

I Cost of Scrub Steer— To Buy 

Steer, ,^.00 lbs. at 2 cents .^10 

20 lbs. cotton seed hulls, 100 days, 1 ton 5 

5 lbs. cotton seed meal, lOO days, '4 ton at $20 5 

Original cost 120 

Allowing for 300 lbs. gain, making a gross weight of 800 lbs., worth 4 cents per lb 32 

Or net profit of .$12 

So that its value on the market today, at 4 cents a pound you have a profit 
on the original carcass of the difference between $20.00 and $32.00, or $12.00 profit. 

Now take a comparative table with two crosses of pure-bred stock on our 
native heifers. They will weigh at two years old, 1,000 pounds and over, and \\ 
will not cost any more to raise them up to this point than the "scrub," say a cost 
of $8.00: 

Cost of Grade Steer— To Raise Instead of Buying 

For 100 days 

Steer, 1000 lbs. 2 years old $ 8 

Feed, cost of feeding, same as scrub 10 

Original cost |18 

Weight of steer at 2 years 1000 lbs. 

Gain in weight during feeding 300 lbs. 

Total weight 1300 lbs. at 5 cents .$65 

Less original cost 18 

Giving net profit on grade steer of $47 

Net profit of scrub 12 

Making a difference between the scrub and grade steer of $35 

Or, a difference in favor of the grade or crossbred steer of $47.00 as against 
$i2.oo or $35.00 a head for the better steer. I do not take into account the cost of 
labor of hauling hulls, or of anything of the kind, or of feeding the animals after 
they go to the feeding pens, because it has been proven a great many times that 
a.^ter cotton seed hulls and meal go through an animal, dried, and used as a fertilizer 
with other ingredients, will much more than pay all cost of care of stock. Also 
note, bulls are probably novv double their future price owing to failure of forage in 
the West. While there is a fair profit even at present prices of seed and hulls with 
the "scrub" if properlv fed, with the practically pure-bred steer there is four times 
the profit: which is the point I wish to make as to their total value. When you 
feed, feed something good. The above estimate is made for steers above the cassava 
growing section. If you have that in abundance you can reduce the cost of the 
food of the fattening animal about $4.00 per head, and probably $2.00 growing, or 

25 



$6.00 less per head. Or from Professor Stockbridge's figures you can make beef 
for $2.00 per 100 pounds as against $$ 00 in the North. 

Here is an illustration of what can be done with $i,ooo.ooand pure-bred bulls 
on common stock. It is taken for granted you have your farm, and well watered. 
Get the best tyye of beef heifers you can: 







V 




STEERS 


HEIFERS 




. S; 


^5 


^ 












(XI 




a 
'3b ^ 


s 









16 


OS 






-^3 


3 3 


■" 


OJ ^ 


x <^ 


<u§ 


t. 


^5 


C2 


3 




O-JQ 


P5P^ 


00 


Z>H 


tB>i 


=:^ 


Ch 


Ocn 


HZ 


1st year 

and year 


100 


3 


!fl,2U0 


40 








1 40 


100 


140 






.... 


40 








40 


140 


ISO 




1 




40 


40 


48,000 


$ 2,400 
2.400 


40 


180 


220 


4th year 




2 




5« 


40 


48.000 


56 


220 


276 


5th year 




•2 




110 


40 


48.000 


2,400 


110 


276 


886 


tith year 




5 




1.54 


5(i 


67,200 


3.360 


154 


386 


540 


7ch year 




4 




216 


110 


132,000 


6,600 


216 


540 


756 


8th year 




7 




302 


154 


184,000 


9,240 


302 


756 


1058 


9th year 




10 




423 


21ti 


2,59,200 


12,960 


423 


10a8 


1481 


10th year 


■^■■■_ 


12 




592 


302 


362.400 


18,120 


592 


1481 


2073 


Total 


43 




290 






.'i;57.480 









Cost of original stock $ 1,000 

Cost of bulls, 43 at . $50 ... 2.150 

Cost of keeping steers 19,160 

Total expenditure .1!22,310 

Amount received from sales .'^57,480 

Less total expenditui-e 22,310 

Net profit if35,170 

And the several thousand heifers. 

Also, the next two years 11 and 12 yields over *60,000 gross and a heavy return in the shape 
of fertilizer to the farm, iiuadrnpling its value at least. 

And now that the Twentieth century has run its course may we not hope for 
the Southern farmer to lift himself out of the rut he has been following so long and 
so detrimental to himself and state, and plant his feet firmly on the foundation of 
stock raising, which is as firm for the future as our red hills, thus more nearly 
rounding out his complete manhood, and above that of the common clodhopper. 
1 I a word, to be what iNature inlended him to be, to take every advantage of his 
environments and follow his best interest till he wins what all of us are looking 
for: Success. 

Now, a few words in conclusion. And i want to say that these figures are 
not in the least exaggerated, but all easily proven. Any man of ordinary intelligence 
who has a farm and is willing to work, and who will buy and care for a pure-blooded 
beef bull — take not onlv his own state farmers' papers, but that prince of stock 
papers, the Breeders' Gazette, that has more information of value to him, yearly, 
than some whole libraries. Then work with every member of his legislature till he 
gets a small fund for a Farmers' Institute, and then push that for all of Its capa- 
bilities, which are simply immense. For example, test the question of digested 
cotton seed meal and other foods as compared to commercial fertilizers. Some of 
our experiment stations place it as high as 90 per cent, of its cost. Say you only 
get 50 per cent, returned to vour farm, see what a valuable yearly increment you 
get. Note what other people are doing, as for example the Southern Cattle and 
Improvement Company of Chicago and Joliet, ill., have recently bought 51,000 
acres and secured options on much more; The British and Southern States Cattle 
Abattoir and Produce Company, Ld., of London, have secured options on nearly 
200,000 acres, and you can rest assured they will have no scrub bulls. William 
Lyle, of Bartow Countv. Fla., fed a common scrub cow on cassava tor sixty days 
and gained 205 pounds, making fine beef, and netting him a profit, over first cost 
and feed, of $15.00. .V\any of you can do that much at least. Also, John Rankin, 
of Tarkio, Mo., the largest individual feeder in the world, of live stock, has just 
bought and shipped to his farm, from Texas. 10,000 tons of cotton seed meal for 
feeding purposes. Also, look at the following figures which show the average 
prices made at the auction sales of pure-bred breeding stock in 1901, all in the 
North. Let us try to raise same of this at home: 

26 



. GENERAL AVERAGES 

Breed No. Sold 

Shorthorns 4,045 

Angus 894 

Herefords 1,885 

Red Polls 79 

Polled Durhams 243 

Galloways 68 



Total 


AVERAGE 


.U,iy6,-i90.95 


*2S0.91 


248,025 00 


277.43 


4e8,305 00 


240.80 


18,210.00 


230.50 


52,(525.00 


21C.5t> 


14,115.00 


207.57 



7.214 $1,927,570.95 $2(!7.20 

HIGHEST PRICKS 

Shorthorns— Bull— Imp. Lord Banff, roan, calved Jan. 10, 1899; sire, Cap-a-Ple 15.100 

Cow— Imp. Missie 163d, red, calved Feb. 20, 1869; sire. Wanderer 6,000 

Herefords— Bull— Beau Donald 33d, 109867; sire. Beau Donald 2,000 

Cow— Dolly 2d. 61799, calTed Dee. 20, 1892; sire, (j rover More ton 5,000 

Angus— Bull— Orrin of Longbranch 26617, calved Jan. 24, 1897: sire. Heather Lad of 

Emerson 2d 1,300 

Cow— Imp. Krivinia 28475. calved Jan. 25, 1900; sire, Bion 1,700 

Polled Durhams— Bull— Cambridge Lad 3d, red, calved Dec. 28. 1897; sire, Ottawa Star.. 1,000 
Cow— Bracelet of Stillwater, red, calved Oct. 14, 1900 ; sire. Cambridge 

Lad 3d 1,005 

Galloways— Bull— Imp. McDougall 4th of Tarbreoch, calved Feb. 15. 1897; sire, Scottish 

Standard 2.000 

Cow— Imp. Lady Harden 4th, 16448, calved Jan. 3. 1900; sire, Scottish 

Standard 560 

Red Polls— Bull— Gratwicke, calved Aug. 13, 1898; sire. The Ensign S65 

Cow— Prairie Blossom, 12803, 1-9, calved Feb. 19. 1897; sire. Adonis 1,005 

Look at some of the prices paid for fancy Christinas steers: D. W. Black, of 
Lyndon, Ohio, sold fifteen steers, average weight, 1,497 pounds at$i2.co per 100; 
Charles Escher, a carload, average weight 1,500 pounds, at $21.50 per 100. Why, 
our Atlanta butcher sold his prize steers, best roasts, at 25 cents per ponnd. 1 know 
they were fine. 1 saw them at the Atlanta fair, and bought som« for my Christmas 
dinner. It is not generally understood, but it is true nevertheless, that the live 
stock industry of the United States contributes more than anything else to American 
agricultural prosperity, which is the basis of our national progress. Few persons 
outside of those who study comprehensive totals pertaining to thelproduction and 
distribution of the necessaries of life, realize the magnitude and importance of this 
great business. It is a great factor to be taken into consideration is the fact that 
our population is increasing In the United States faster than our beef cattle. Hence 
the market will probably never be lower. 

For the first time the census of the United States has attempted to complete 
enumeration of the domestic animals of the countrv. The general result of this 
live stock census was announced Dec. 3 by Hon. L. G. Powers. Chief Statistician 
of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, in an address before the National Live Stock 
Association during its fifth annual convention at Chicago. Taking the figures 
revealed by this census, showing the number of head of each kind of animals in the 
United States on June i, 1900, and applying the same general valuations per head 
(Jan. I, 1900) used by the United States Bureau of Statistics in its annual report 
for 1900, we have the following interesting result: 

Number Kind Av. Peh:e Per Head Value 

21,365,250 Horses .$44 61 $ 958,103,802 

3,459,582 Mules bS.m 185,295,212 

18,172,914 Milch Cows 31.60 574,264,082 

51,.?49.820 Other Cattle 24.97 1,282,205,005 

61,645,325 Sheep 2.93 180,620,802 

65,115,363 Hogs 4.58 298.228.383 

1,893,491 Goats 2.95 5,537.928 

119,992 Asses 53.56 6,426,771 



223,121,737 Animals, total .^. $3,485,691,905 

This stupendous sum, showing less than the actual aggregate value of the 
domestic animals of the United States on June i, 1900, exceeds the total combined 
value of the products of all the fields, forests and mines of the nation for the pre- 
ceding year. Astounding as that proposition may seem, it is nevertheless suscepti- 
ble of easv demonstration by official figures. In reality, the total value of the 
nation's live stock is considerablv greater than the aggregate aboye shown, owing 
to the advance in prices and the fact that the prices given are the estimated values 
on farms of farm animals only, the animals in cities anJ'towns being considered 
much higher in value. It is safe to say that the present value of the live stock of 
the United States is, approximately, $4,000,000,000-3 sum almost too vast for 
Lomprehension. calculated not only to arrest the attention of the general reader, but 
to arouse the admiration of the world for such a splendid development that has 
taken place almost wholly within a single ordinary lifetime. The percentage of 
this vast sum that are raised in these South Atlantic and Gulf states is almost too 

27 



hie Phosp 


boric 


Value Potash 


Total Fertilizers 


Acid in 1 


Tor. 




in ] Ton 


Value Per Ton 


.fo.sa 






$0 31 


$ 5.00 


0.14 






32 


1.24 


0.16 


As H 


ay 


0.44 


:.8& 

5 40 


0.82 






2.26 


9 71 


0.54 






1.31 


7.55 


0.39 






0.05 


15.53 


a.m 






1.65 


20.16 


2. -28 


^ 




0.99 


19.36 


0.01 






0.67 


35.09 


% 






0.45 


8.49 


0.90 






0.45 


6.70 


0.20 






1.08 


2.11 


0.43 






1.17 


4.60 


3.40 






1.34 


12.30 


. 30 






1,02 


2.18 


0.14 






34 


0.90 



small to mention. Or, a comparison, in the dairy product, would be, for example: 
The little country of Firesland, in size about as large as a good sized county of one 
of our states, produces and exports to England more butter and cheese from her 
Hoistein cattle than all of the states market south of Mason and Bixon's line to 
the iVvississippi river. 

A word about the value of manures. According to U. S. Bulletin No. 21, it 
shows us that there is made yearly by farm animals over $2,000,000,000 worth of 
fertilizers. These estimates are based upon values usually assigned to phosphoric 
acid, potash and nitrogen in commercial fertilizers, and are probably high from a 
practical standpoint. 

Valve Nitrogen 
in 1 Ton 

Corn meal .if 4 . 53 

Corn silage 0. 78 

Crimson clover 1.29 

<Tieen 

Bermuda grass- 3.05 

Crimson clover hay ... 6.03 

Ked clover hay 5.70 

(jlutenmeal 15.09 

Cotton seed. meal 20.85 

Linseed meal 16.08 

Meat scrap 29.01 

Wheat 7.08 

Oats 5.36 

Skim milk 1.74 

Timothy hay 3.00 

Wheat bran 7.-^6 

Wheat straw 0.81 

Turnips 0.48 

1 quote the figures to show the vast loss we subject our farms to when we 
remove from our farms the gross proceeds, and which we might largely save bv 
•'The Stock proposition." Of course the excrement from fattening animals is more 
valuable than working animals that use up such a large percentage of nitrogen. 

Whv, do you know, the far away state of Montana has thirty sheep to one 
in Alabama, thanks to your dogs and legislatures that love them. We are rich in 
our possibilities. Alas, a field of richness to those who take advantage of our 
neglected opportunities. 

Note this little example. Again a case of good stock vs. the scrub. For 
I500.00 you can buy two first class pure-bred registered bulls— Hereford, Shorthorn 
or Angus — 

These, at maturity, are safe for 200 calves yearly, worth at six months $20.00 each, or .f4,000. 
Now, 'iod sci'ub calves, same age, are worth .f2.50 each, or, $500 ; or a difference of $3,500. 

Trv it and see how far wrong 1 am. Whv, 27 per cent, of the weight of the 
steer is 66 per cent, of his value, and get the wide back necessary — no scrub has 
them. Or say fifty farmers chip in $10 each and buy these two bulls; and then be 
sure and have the best man care for them and give him free use to a 1 mited number 
of his cows. See how soon the proposition works itself out. In ten years each 
man will double his personal property and his tillable land. Now, these are the 
results we all are after. Why, the South lets rot on her corn fields, stalks every 
year, that if shredded and cared for properly and fed, would yield enough to buy a 
pure-bred bull for each school district in the State. And you sell your cotton seed 
meal for :?i7.'5o and then buy it back at 1,000 per cent, advanced profit, or $35.00 to 
$200.00 per ton in meat and fertilizers. Furthermore, the farmer's business^is the only 
one of the great industries that capital cannot corner. As long as the world stands 
man must depend on the farmer for food. It is also a fact that farmers will never 
combine. It might be better for them as it is in some of the great industries if they 
should, but they don't. Possibly the good Lord has given them the habit of dis- 
integrating instead of combining that the poor of the world may have their food 
at a price nearly its proper value. Two-thirds of Georgia's broad lands are still 
unfilled— mostly given to waste, and nearly that proportion of farmers' boys, during 
the past quarter of a century, have left their homes to seek the bauble: reputation 
and ease in some other vocation. One-half that number, it may safely be said, 
have not made much of a success in life, but haye left an aching void hard to fill on 
the farm. Most of our great men, from Washington and Jefferson down, have 
either been farmers or born on a farm, showing where the nation gets its constantly 
recuperating strength to supply the wornout tissues of the business life. The city 
cannot liye without the cauntrv, but the country can and did for generations without 
the city. We lag in many of the best things that should make a farmer's life 
happy. Improved machinery and improved stock, improved schools and libraries 
should all be forthcoming, and can be if the farmer will diversify his crops with 

28 



the stock proposition. Ali the professions except th it of farming, the proudest and 
most independent of them ali, is re^llv l.-icking; competent men. 

Now for result--. Suppose the South revers^'- action on this stupendous loss 
of fiftv million dollnrs vearlv. or for the whole South at least 52oo,ooo, an t save it 
as an ad led increment of wealth to our fair land; where would our t ithers be in ten 
vear-? The South increased her agricultural wealth during the decade of 1880 and 
1890 fifty per cent. During the prf'Sent decade she can double this, increasing 100 
pf-r cent, if she adopts the stock proposition Rut remember: First educ ite vour 
men bv me-^ns of farmers' meetings and institutes; then eliminats the scrub; plant 
half as much cotton, it the same time making nearly as many ba'es and getting 
ful!v as mu:h monev for it. Save half vour fertilizer tills, thus having monev to 
build better homes, vour wives more household comforts, putting more roses on her 
cheeks; more education for vour children, more love of home, better manhood and 
womanhood; more love ofGod, better conditions in farms, state and nation, and a 
surer prosoect of a better home tor eternitv. 

At this point in its deliberations, the convention took a recess 
for dinner until 2:30 p. m. 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 

The convention v^as called to order at 2:30 p. m., President C. 
P. Goodyear being in the chair. 

The Chair: Gentlemen — Dr. Wyly, the chief chemist of the 
Agricultural Dei:)artment of the United States, was to have deliv- 
ered an address here today, but was compelled to remain in Wash- 
ington on important business, and he has instead sent a paper to 
be read to the ccmvention which is in Capt. Purse's hands, and I 
will ask Capt. Purse to read it. 

Mr. Purse: Mr. President and Gentlemen — Dr. Wyly has re- 
quested that I read this paper to the convention, and he also re- 
quests that I express to the convention the keen disappointment 
that he feels at not being able to be with you in person: that he 
certainly is with you in spirit, and feels that this convention is or- 
ganized for the purpose of, and will accomplish a great develop- 
ment. 

Capt. Purse then read the address of Dr. Wyly as follows: 

Gentlemen — Permit me, first of all, to express my high appre- 
ciation of the honor which you have conferred upon me by inviting 
me to be present at this convention, and also my deep regret that 
ofticial business of the utmost importance has prevented me from 
accepting the honor in person and of renewing the personal ac- 
quaintance of last summer, when I had the pleasure of meeting so 
many of you dtiring my brief inspection of the sugar cane syrup- 
producing localities in this vicinity. 

You will be glad to know that some of the fruits of this inspec- 
tion have already been secured in the way of having the attention 
of the House Committee on Agriculture attracted to the industry 
in a general way. This committee has recommended a grant of a 
sum of money to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate 
some of the most important questions which should receive con- 
sideration in a scientific investigation of this industry. 

29 



First of all, a study of the soil on which the cane grows is of 
chief importmce, from a scientific point of view. You know a 
great deal more than I of the character of your soil. From the 
brief inspection which I made of it, and from the numerous sam- 
ples which have been submitted for analysis, I am able to say that it 
is of a character which is described as sandy or silicious soil. In 
other words, it is a soil deficient in clay, and, to a certain extent, 
in humus. Soils of this character are well known to be the best 
suited, perhaps of all, to the growth of certain root crops, such as 
the sweet potatfj, the yam ^nd cassava. They do not, however, 
have that abundance of plant footi which is necessary to produce 
large and profitable crops of cereals, cotton and sugar cane. 

It is thus evident from the outset that, from an agricultural 
point of view, the problem of fertilization is of paramount impor- 
t mce. To produce large crops on a soil of this kind, a judicious 
system of plant feeding must be pursued, and to this end the very 
first step in our study should be to investigate first, from the 
purely scientific point of view, to determine the deficiencies in the 
soil which should be remedied; and second, from a practical point 
of view, in applying different fertihzers, under careful control and 
in varying quantities to contiguous plots, to determine the charac- 
ter and quantity of the crop produced. 

I will say that this part of the work has already been under- 
taken and, to a certain extent, prosecuted. Numerous samples of 
soil, collected under directions from the Bureau of Chemistry by 
Captain D. G. Purse, have been analyzed — over a hundred in all. 
Arrangements were also made in the early spring for a compara- 
tive tpst of fertilizers on contiguous plots. The fertilizers used 
have l)een analyzed in the Bureau of Chemistry, and directions for 
their application were transmitted in ample time to secure the 
planting of the crop in harmony with the indications which analy- 
sis had given. This preliminary test, you will understand, is only 
a beginning, and was only intended to point the way for more elab- 
orate tests in the future. 

Commercial fertilizers are exi3ensive, and the farmer should 
seek in every way to secure the highest results in the way of crop 
from the least outlay. These analytical researches, together with 
the practical tests indicated above, will point the way whereby the 
most profitable returns may be secured from a given outlay. 

In this connection it is only proper to say that in the continua- 
tion of this study, an effort will be made to collaborate with nature 
in storing in the soil those elements of plant nutrition which are 
costly and essential. It seems to me that these soils might all be 
greatly improved by the introduction of organic matter which, by 
its decay, would supply a larger content of humus, thus helping 
to improve the condition of the soil from a physical point of view, 
and also to retain and utilize more fully added fertilizing principles. 

I regard this, viz., the study of the soil and the methods of 
fertilization, as the first problem which should be worked out to a 
successful issue, in the manner which has been commenced and 
which I have indicated above. 

The second problem in this industry of syrup-making is found 
in a study of the best methods of cultivating, harvesting and 

30 



handling the cane. This is a question where science, in the proper 
sense of the word, does not come in. It is a matter of mechanical 
ingenuity and inteUip^ent supervision* of labor. I, of course, only 
suggest this problem- without adding anything in ttie way of a 
practical solution of it. It is a matter which is left, properly, alto- 
gether in your hands. I will say, however, that every step which 
is being taken looking to economy and efficiency in cultivating, 
harvesting and handling the cane — and by this I mean the crush- 
ing of the cane also in order to secure the largest return of juice — 
will bear directly and fundamentally upon the prosperity of the 
business. I need not spend any time to illustrate a proposition 
so self-evident as the above. I will, however, give a single illustra- 
tion : 

The quantity of syrup made per ton of cane depends, first, 
upon the richness in sugar of the cane, and second, in the effi- 
ciency of its expression. Assuming that the cane contains the 
sime amount of sugar, it is evident that a method of extraction 
which secures eighty per cen*l of the juice contained therein will 
give far more sugar than one which secures only sixty per cent. 
During my brief tour in November I made no weighings whatever 
to determine the degree of extraction. Being familiar, however, 
as I am, with the large mills of sugar-producing districts, I was 
struck with the fact that in the smaller mills which were in opera- 
tion in the localities which I visited, the degree of extraction was 
f ir less perfect than it should be. So much was I impressed with 
this idea, that I suggested to some of the manufacturers the ad- 
visability of introducing a seccmd mill and of saturating the 
bagasse as it passed from the first to the second mill with hot wa- 
ter, in order to secure a higher degree of extraction. This pro- 
cess, of course, will produce a more dilute juice and require a 
greater amount of fuel in evaporation, but in localities where fuel 
is so abundant and so cheap as those I visited, this additional ex- 
pense would not be a matter of any great consequence. 

In the third place, a matter of great significance is presented 
in the method of securing a product of uniform density, brightness 
and color. This object can be attained by attention to the juice 
after it is expressed, by judicious bleaching with the fumes of 
burning sulphur, by a scientific and careful defacation of the juice, 
and by a rapid and uniform concentration of the clarified juice to 
the consistency of syrup, and by care in cooling and storing the 
syrup produced. I will not take up your time now by entering 
into details of the methods which should be adopted to secure the 
object mentioned above. I will only say that in case Congress au- 
thorizes the study of this industry, which is probable, this part of 
the problem will receive careful attention. To this end it will be 
our purpose to solicit the collaboration of the manufacturers, so 
that the principles involved in the study may be widely understood 
and applied in a successful way in actual manufacture. It is evi- 
dent that a product which can be placed upon the market with a 
uniform color, with satisfactory brightness and limpidity, and of a 
a standard density, will have a better standing than goods offered 
■^ith variations in the qualities above described. 

In the fourth place, an important study of the crop will be 

31 



found in securing a syrup which will not crystalize on standing. 
In other words, the value of a syrup is improved by its failure to 
crystalize. If the object in View were to make sugar, of course 
just the opposite effort would be made, viz: to secure as high a de- 
gree of crystalization as possible. 

Analyses have shown that the canes grown in the syrup- 
making regions of our country are extremely rich in sugar, richer, 
indeed, than those used in Louisiana for sugar-making purposes. 
Unless some method be adopted by means of which this sugar 
may be partially inverted in the course of manufacture, there will 
be always a tendency to crystalize. In the boiling of the cane 
juices in the open air, that is without a vacuum, a large part of the 
sugar present is inverted by the action of the heat and of the natu- 
ral acids of the juice. Still in some cases, this inversion is not 
sufficient to secure freedom from crystalization. In those cases, 
either some harmless substance must be added to secure the in- 
version, or the juices of the cane must be treated before crushing 
so as to secure a partial inversion of the sugar in the cane. It is 
well known that if canes are cut for a considerable time before 
crushing, there is a tendency for a portion of the sugar to become 
inverted, and thus diminish the danger of crystalization. This 
method of proceedure would be entirely satisfactory if we could 
guard against the fermentative process which often sets in, as 
well as the inverting process, thus destroying a portion of the 
sugar. 

Du ring the boiling, a similar effect can be produced by adding 
some Ivirmless inverting agent, like cream of tartar or vinegar, to 
the s.vrup. I cannot now give any details of how these matters 
can b ) applied, but can only say that they will be a subject of ex- 
periment, in case authority is given to continue these investiga- 
tions . 

Ln the fifth place, the final problem which demands study from 
a scientific point of view, is the method of preserving the syrup 
from fermentation during the hot months. I will say at the out- 
set, that I shouldn't favor the addition to the syrup of any kind of 
a preservative for this purpose, 'xhe merit of the product of the 
sugar cane in the form of syrup must be established and main- 
tained, and the addition of any substance of this kind would un- 
doubtedly discredit the product in the eyes of the people, and pos- 
sibly introduce an element which in some cases might be injurious 
to the health. It seems to me, therefore, that if we can maintain 
by careful control the condition of perfect sterilization of the syrup 
which is found when the boiling is completed, the purpose will 
have been secured. At the time the syrup is finished in the evap- 
(nmtor, there is absolutely no sign of germ life therein. Every 
fermentative germ has been absolutely destroyed by the high 
temperature. If now this sterile and hot syrup can be protected 
into a cooling and bottling room, from which fermentative germs 
are excluded, and placed in packages from which the air is ex- 
cluded also, fermentation will be impossible. It seems that the 
erection of such a practically sterilized room might be secured 
without much expense, and thus the great danger and annoyance 
of fermentation in hot weather be avoided. 

32 



Tliere vre otlior ways in which sterilization can be secured, 
viz: by re-h mating the packages after they have once been put up, 
but this would require some considerable expense, and if the same 
end could b'^ secured in the first place, it would be more desirable. 
The ab )ve, gentlemen, are some of the problems which we 
hope to be able to study and, in collaboration with you, to solve. I 
need not ca. 1 your further attention to the fact that the solution of 
these problems will do much towards establishing your industries, 
establishing the markets for your products, and increasing the 
prosperity of all agricultural interests involved in the production 
of this most excellent aiid most palatable article. You know al- 
ready, with )ut any assurance from me, that the Secretary of Ag- 
riculture has taken the greatest interest in this matter, and has 
authorized me to use every possible means which Congress may 
place in my hands, or science devise, to promote this industry and 
place it upon a firm scientific basis. He has urged upon Congress 
the advisability of giving the necessary funds, and realizes most 
keenly the necessity of protecting your product against adultera- 
tions of all kinds, which are flooding the markets of the country 
with cheap syrups, sold ofton under false names and false brands 
as to the localities where made. The object of the Secretary is not 
only to aid in the establishment of this and similar industries, but 
also to ])rotect them from unjust competition with adulterated, 
mis-branded or debased products. 

The Chair: We have with us here a gentleman from Mcintosh, 
Florida, who was with us at the birth of this movement, and who 
at that time made us a magnificent and practical talk. I introduce 
to you, gentlemen, Mr. Gaitskill, of Mcintosh, Florida. 

Mr. Gaitskill: Gentlemen of the Convention — You have heard 
from Mr. Wade as to the possibilities of this country, and he has 
given you clearly the outlines of what I consider possible and what 
is possible, daily possible, and not only possible, and not only pos- 
sible, but what most any good farmer ought to be able to accom- 
plish. It would be entirely useless to show theoretically that a 
thing could be done, if after demonstration you find that it is im- 
possible to make it a practical business success. I can say that I 
have followed along these lines, and can give you the successes 
that I have made on farms. First of all, you want to find the place, 
country or community, where the average farmer of small means 
can make a success of farming. For if your small farmer cannot 
make a success at it, it is not a successful farming country; and 
where the small farmer does succeed, that is a country that wiU 
be prosperous. He is the man that must succeed before you can 
have a successful farming country. I don't understand that our 
Secretary in his efforts is thinking of the man with large means 
and abundant capital, but that it is the men of small means all over 
the country — the man between the plow handles— that he is trying 
to help. He wants to help if possible the man between the plow 
handles, and teach him how to ride. 

You can succeed I believe, but you must try it upon special 
lines. You can go into general farming, as you might term it, 
combining the farming of other products and stock raising with 
cotton as a surplus money crop, and what he says about cotton 



seed meal is true. There is no question about the value of cotton 
seed meal as a food for stock if it is properly combined. I find 
some people that are very much inclined to feed cotton seed hulls. 
I have never found any real value in the cotton seed hulls as a feed. 
It seems to me that it is nothing but a filler, and I do not see why 
you cannot use hay as the filler and answer all of the purposes and 
get a better food stuff besides. I can make good hay, as I think 
Col. Wade told us this morning, far better, more nutritious hay, 
than you can get that comes from the West. We can do it in Flor- 
ida, and I believe that you can do it here. And speaking of the 
possibilities of making hay: I believe I shipped to my neighbor- 
ing county in Florida this year twenty-two tons of hay, and a man 
from there paid me fifteen dollars per ton for it, when there is no 
reason in the world why he shouldn't just as well have made his 
own hay. And I would rather have it — Crab grass hay — than 
Timothy. Now, if you ever attempt to make any Crab grass hay, 
don't cut it while it is in bloom. Wait until it is ripe, and cut it 
about along in October. There seems to be a great deal of water 
in Crab grass stems, and it must be ripe or you cannot cure it 
properly. That with the velvet bean, which all of you can grow, I 
reckon, and you have a food product that will enable you to pro- 
duce more bacon and more beef than almost any State in the 
Union at the same cost. I was grown up on a farm in Kentucky, 
and I well know the farming there. I don't believe that there is 
any better State to make a success of farming than is Kentucky — 
and I believe that I can make beef of the same sort in Florida that- 
will cost me one-third less than it would cost in Kentucky; and I 
believe if I can say that of Kentucky, I can say it of any other 
State. That may sound to you a little strange, but in the last six 
weeks I have purchased sixteen hundred acres of land, and that 
whole farm shall be nothing but a stock farm. But, as Mr. Secre- 
tary told you, the only proper stock-raising country in the world 
must be a grazing country — you must have grass — but on your 
low-lying lands here, it seems to me that it is beyond question, 
you can make grass, Bermuda grass, and I am sure that there is 
nothing better. Some of the farmers in the South are mightily 
afraid of Bermuda grass. I say that it is a mighty poor farmer 
that cannot kill any grass that grows. There is no grass, no green 
thing that grows out of the ground, that if you prevent its making 
mature leaves, you will kill it. It must make mature leaves, or it 
dies. I have never seen anything yet that can stand it in the way 
of plant life. It must mature its leaves. I am sorry to say that 
most of the Florida farmers, and the Georgia farmers, and Ala- 
bama and South Carolina and North Carolina too, are about the 
same, but I will say it only of the Florida farmers, so that none of 
you can get hurt. I will use my own home as an illustration. You 
don't cultivate your crops. You start in to farm by shares. You 
half way break the ground: instead of plowing it thoroughly and 
fitting it for the crop to grow there, you sorter half way break it 
up. And then after that, you cannot make the crop that you ought 
to make, no matter what you do. If you broadcast your ground, 
break it up broadcast as deep as ever there is soil — six inches if 
you caji — and if you cut a little deeper every year, you wiU deepen 

34 ' " 



your soil. Then prepare it and plant it, and you can expect a crop. 
More than that, after you plant your crops, you don't cultivate the 
crops at all. You simply go there to kill the grass. You wait un- 
til long after the crop needs working, and then you go there to 
kill the weeds and grass. You cannot make a crop that way. I 
don't think there is any crop ever planted, or that I ever had any- 
thing to do with, that should not be cultivated once a week or once 
in ten days anyway; but you can keep the weeds and grass down 
by going over it once in two weeks. I see that all along the rail- 
roads that I travel over, and many of my neighbors at home do 
just that sort of farming. As the Secretary told us this morning, 
soil preservation is one of the most important things in this land. 
You cannot make a success of farming unless you keep up your 
soil, and not sell everything away from it. I don't think there is any 
country that can compete with us here in the making of beef. 
And besides that, when we sell it, we only sell the beef, and all the 
best part of what is taken out of the soil is put back. And you 
were told this morning how one-crop growing will run the soil 
down. If you keep raising the same crop (m it, any land will go 
down. I am not an advocate of raising cassava for the starch fac- 
tories. You can make money by that, but you can make a great 
deal more out of your cassava by making meat out of it. I told 
you that when I was here a year ago, and I am more convinced of 
it now, because I have had more experience. There is no better 
food that you can give chickens than cassava, and it is good feed, 
some of it, for milk cows — a httle of it, but not too httle. For hogs, 
you must have something along with it. Hogs get tired of it, and cat- 
tle get tired of it, as you yourself would get tired of i)ie or anything 
else that you were forced to eat all the time. Animals are like hu- 
mans in that way, and they get tired of anything when you keep it 
up. By itself they will get tired of eating it, and won't do well. 
You had better mix your feed for your cattle, and they want grass. 
It don't take much fertilizer to make good grass, especially where 
you can grow Bermuda grass, and I speak of that because that is 
one of the grasses that you all can grow. But you are afraid of it. 
I killed the Bermuda grass in a cassava patch last year, and there 
is none there now. I will .say this though, that where that Ber- 
muda did grow, there I had the best cassava. There is a patch of 
Bermuda grass there now about as big as this room, not half killed 
down, in a place where I have got some beans planted, and the 
beans there where the Bermuda grass is are very much larger 
and finer than elsewhere. There you have got a fertilizer without 
paying for it. You can grow leguminous crops here too, and make 
your crops without buying any fertihzer. There are combined 
foods that wiU go with your farming for feeding any kind of stock; 
also in connection with that, you want to combine the food differ- 
ently for the different kinds of stock. And you want to have dif- 
ferent kinds of stock. You don't want cattle alone, aud you don't 
want horses alone, you don't want sheep alone. You want some 
of aU of them if you can handle them, and I think you can, because 
one generally eats what the other does not. There is an old rule 
in Kentucky that cattle won't do well with sheep, but my cattle 
do well with sheep. My cattle always did do weU with sheep if I 

35 



had plenty of grass for them both. Most people put enough cattle 
in a field to eat all the grass, and then if you put sheep in there 
too, of course neither the cattle nor the sheep will do well — there 
is more demand for grass than there is grass to fill the demand. 
If there is grass enough, I think the cattle and sheep go together 
all right. Then don't try to raise your cattle on the range to live 
the best way they can. Have your fenced lands and raise grass 
for them. You can do it — the grass will grow, if it is not fed off 
by everybody's cattle. You have got to fence jour land if you 
expect to make much money out of your cattle. Also it is a good 
trick to grow hogs. But I can't impress too much on you the im- 
portance of having your lands fenced, and not letting your stock 
just run out with the general herds. You will make enough money 
by it to more than pay for the fence. I don't think Col. Wade was 
very far wrong when he gave his estimate. He spoke of having a 
steer not exceeding thirty months old weighing thirteen or four- 
teen hundred pounds. I expect to raise calves in Florida that will 
go to the Liverpool market. There is no trouble about the market. 
The market don't want wiregrass beef, but if you make the right 
kind of beef, there is no trouble about the market. An English- 
man wants beef to his taste, and if you will raise it, he will pay 
you for it — so will the New Yorker, and so will the men elsewhere. 
There is abundance of money at the large centers of population in 
the United States today with owners that don't care what they pay 
for a thing, but if they can get what they want, they are willing to 
pay. If you make good stock, they will pay you for it. You can 
get to the market from here as cheaply as you can from the West — 
not Chicago, I reckon, but New York. You can get there just as 
cheap as Kentucky can. I had a neighbor in Florida last week to 
butcher seven hogs that were a little over six months old, 
and they netted about one hundred and forty pounds each, and 
that gave him a little over eight dollars — about nine dollars apiece 
for six months old pigs, and it cost very little to make them. You 
do not have to feed them like you do in the North: they have no 
difficulty about wintering, and you don't have to feed them down 
here against the cold. And I believe you can do just as well as 
that. I am not afraid of your making too mucli meat, you cannot 
make more than the market demands at a good profit. I don't 
believe that you can name any one single product that is grown 
today, and is grown for quality, that is of high quality, that there 
is not a greater demand than the supply. If you make sorry syr- 
up they won't take it, but if you make a high grade syrup, they 
will take it, more than you can supi^ly. It is not alone syrup, but 
everything else. I will just make one statement: We have a man 
at De Funiak Springs, Florida, who has been making syrup for 
twelve years. He says he has demands for syrup from one man 
for five thousand gallons, and that he could safely undertake to 
sell ten thousand gallons, if it was the same kind of syrup as his, 
at fifty cents per gallon. He makes his of fine quality. He says 
there is only one thing in it, and his theory is straining and act- 
ually filtering the cane juice, and he does that with moss, Florida 
moss. But that filtering must be thoroughly done, almost as if 
you had run it through litmus paper. He has no trouble at aU in 

36 



selling all of his syrup. Two or three hundred dollars will cover 
all the machinery that is necessary to make that syrup lit for any 
market. 

As I said a few minutes ago, the important quality for a farm- 
ing country to possess is, that it is where the man of small means 
can make a success. Then, as the Secretary tells us today, edu- 
cate the people. Calculate what you people of Georgia are doing 
for the education of every child in the land. That is as much im- 
portant as making good syrup or making good beef for the mar- 
ket. To give skill and education is of as much importance to the 
people of the country as making meat and bread for them, because 
the country's true farmer is most properly a scientific man. There 
is no man in any business who needs to be more scientific than the 
farmer. He has got to be almost an expert, and to know a good 
many lines. He must know how to diversify his crops, know how 
to get a variety of stock, know the growing of stock and feeding of 
stock, know the cultivation of the crops and how to handle the 
crops. And whether he knows that it is science or not, it is science 
to know these things. That is the kind of man you want, and in 
the common school is the place to get that kind of man. 

I was very much interested in what Col. Wade had to say this 
morning, but one thing struck me as rather funny. He tells us 
about doing this, that and the other, and about getting pure bred 
stock. That is all right. We need pure bred stock, but while we 
need pure bred stock, we need first to take care of what stock we 
have. But we must have this pure bred stock, we must have pure 
bred hogs, must have pure bred beef cattle, and we must have 
blooded horses. But Col. Wade knows that you cannot get a full 
bred bull without paying about two hundred dollars for him, and 
he knows that after you bring him down here, he may live a month, 
or two months, or a year, and maybe get through all right. Col. 
Wade didn't mean that we are all partners in these interests he 
represents. We are all partners in this railroad business. They 
run the railroad for us and we get what we can, for they get their 
freights out of that full bred bull without taking any of the risk. 
I mean to say that the people at De Puniak Springs, and in that 
section of country, have pure bred Short Horns, and I understand 
that it has not cost them one cent of freight to get these bulls there. 
The L. & N. Railroad said to them that if they would buy the pure 
bred stock for breeding that they would bring them there, and 
now down in my country, we can get one. We have got the people 
there who would get the bulls for breeding, but while the people at 
De Funiak Springs could get them there for nothing, it costs 
money and lots of money to get them to Mcintosh. Last summer 
I was in Kentucky and my brother had a bull that he had had for 
three years, as long as he could use him profitably, and he offered 
to sell that bull for forty-five dollars. Possibly the bull, if I 
bought him and brought him down here would not last a month, 
and possibly he would die off in one to three months. I could well 
have afforded to pay that amount easily if he had got a dozen 
calves and then died. But the railroads wanted to divide with me. 
They would get the hauling of the beef that I made, and I think 
they should take a part of the risk in these things, at least in the 

37 



way of freights, but they wanted more in freight for bringing the 
bull there than the risk of bringing him was worth. Now, I believe 
in railroads. Florida would not be worth anything without rail- 
roads, and I don't blame them for getting all they can. I am not 
kicking at the railroads at all. We would all do the same thing if 
we had the cliance. The only monopolies that any man kicks 
against are the other fellow's monopolies. Every one of us is per- 
fectly willing to have a good monopoly. We gave it to them and 
they are not exceeding their privileges, and if they are, we are at 
perfect liberty to make them toe the mark, but it seems to me 
that it would be a good business idea for them to help us out in 
improving the breed of our cattle in this country. 

Col. Wade: Just one word. I would like to inform the gentle- 
man that the Southern Railway Company has had that matter up 
since the first of January, and they made the proposition to the 
Association to take as much interest in it as you do, and that they 
would take the freight off if they would. That is, that all pure bred 
stock brought into the South over our system and another sys- 
tem, our road would carry them free if the other system would, 
and we don't like to hurt our neighbor's feelings and bring them 
free anyway. 

Mr. Gaitskill: The farmer is the man you want to benefit. 

Mr. Wade: Certainly. 

The Chair: Gentlemen of the Convention — I fixed the value 
on one speech made here last winter at one million dollars. The 
gentleman who made that speech is going to make another, and I 
fix its value in advance at one million dollars more. I introduce 
to you Prof. H. E. Stockbridge, of Florida. 

Mr. Stockbridge: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — The 
subject that I was announced to present to you this afternoon for 
a short time is that of the velvet bean, and I shall start in by say- 
i ^g that that is the crop that has attracted so much attention for 
tlie last few years in the wiregrass region of Georgia and Florida, 
and at the same time I shall caution you in the beginning that I ex- 
pect to take up the matter of the adaptation of the velvet bean, the 
methods of cultivation of the crop, and the influence of the velvet 
bean upon our economical conditions. I have chosen the velvet 
bean as a subject because I believe that it is one of the crops which, 
if properly utilized, will enable us to revolutionize the conditions 
which we recognize as existing over south Georgian and north 
Florida, or in other words, the long leaf pine belt, or as it is fre- 
quently called, the wiregrass country. That there should be a 
change, we all admit; and we are in our inmost consciences some- 
what ashamed in spite of the great progress made in the reflection 
that often aspersions are cast upon our section by people who are 
not famihar with the conditions. We hear, for instance, such 
statements made as I know a Northern lady addressed to me trav- 
eling from the North to the South over the railroad. Looking out 
of the window of the train going through this section, she was 
constantly reiterating this remark: "What do the people live on 
hereV What can they live on?" And she kept up that until I could 
not stand it any longer, and I said: "If you really want to know 
what they live on, I will tell you. We live on fish in the summer 

38 



time and on sick Yankees in the winter." Some of us are anxious 
to be able to stem the tide of such expressions as proceeded from 
this sick Yankee. And we beheve that the conditions of our coun- 
try are such that a transformation can and must very rapidly be 
brought about when it will be impossible for such aspersions to be 
cast upon us. And I recognize this velvet bean as being one of the 
leading powers bringing about this transformation. The velvet 
bean furnishes us with a crop that in conjunction with other crops 
is not so much a market crop, but if utilized in diversification with 
other crops and properly handled, certainly will be recreative in 
its action in this section of country. I will present a few reasons, 
as it seems to me: 

The first reason why I consider that the velvet bean is worthy 
of our consideration is, that it furnishes us unquestionably with a 
new crop. Various means of utilizing the vast areas of our coun- 
try, outlying, waste, and from which the primeval forests have 
been removed, and for which we have looked for a crop that will 
furnish us with returns, have been suggested, but they are not 
sufticient. All of the area lying waste in Florida cannot be utilized 
for sugar cane, and we have no question about using them for cot- 
ton. There is no profit in cultivating these lands in corn under 
existing conditions. The problem that has confronted us is how 
can these lands be utilized to return a profitable, cash crop, and at 
the same time so utilized that a minimum expense of maintenance 
is required. We have in a measure pointed to the solution of this 
problem in the growing of cattle. Now, the velvet bean will not 
only successfully grow, thrive and mature upon these lands, but it 
is in addition unquestionably a crop that is more economically 
grown than any other cultivated crop with which I am familiar. 
It is distinctly the lazy man's crop. It is grow^n so successfully 
and with such economy of labor and expense, that it furnishes us 
with the means for the utilization of the vast areas where crops 
with which we have been heretofore familiar could not be utilized 
simply because of the initial expense involved in bringing these 
lands under cultivation. 

The next point that I would make in connection with the vel- 
vet bean is this: We stand in the South today face to face with a 
problem of the restoration and fertilization of our lands from 
which the cotton from year to year has been removed sokmg. So 
long as the seed were returned to the soil we have been able 
to retain their fertility, but since the price of cotton sL^ed meal 
has increased to such an extent as to almost force us to send 
the seed to the oil mill, so that the question ccmfronts us now 
how can we restore the fertility of these lands which have been 
worn down constantly by taking away from them their life in 
the cotton seed meal. We recognize several crops which, in a 
measure, furnish a solution to this problem. We know that there 
are several crops that possess the wonderful property of extract- 
ing considerable amounts of nitrogen from the air. The chief 
among these crops is the common pea, with which ycu are fa- 
miliar; but this crop, in familiar languuge, has its limitations. 
Although we recognize that the crop when grown is a very val- 
uable one, and that properly utilized it furnishes the best animiil 

39 



food stuff, and that if the manure is returned to the land, or if the 
crop is plowed under, the maintenance of our soils is assured, but 
the difficulty lies in the fact that it takes a pretty good class of soil 
to produce a crop of the common pea. It is not adapted to our 
poorest soils properly, it is not adapted to our pine lands, because 
an ordinary crop cannot be made without fertilization and careful 
culture. It does not meet our requirements, and therefore it can 
b3 put aside. On the other hand, the velvet bean is adapted to the 
very poorest lands. There is not an acre of land in Georgia, of 
those poor pine-excluded soil, that will not produce the velvet bean 
without any fertilization. That is the quality that is given to it by 
nature, to supply all of its nitrogen from the air. Not only can it 
be successfully grown on our soils, but our poorest soils. It is not 
only almost self-sustaining, but beyond that the velvet bean, of aU 
the plants that are named as containing large quantities of nitro- 
gen, stands first. 

An especial point that I want to caU attention to, and that is 
worthy of careful consideration, is that the velvet bean furnishes 
us the means to keep up the fertility of our soils, while at the same 
time we can use most of it as a crop to market from the land. The 
amount of nitrogen that is extracted from the air, if the crop is 
allowed to return to the soil, is incorporated with the soil and 
thereafter increases the fertility of that soil just to the extent to 
which this nitrogen has been added. The amount of nitrogen thus 
returned to that soil is phenomenal. The amount of crop that any 
good farmer should not expect to fall below is three tons to the 
acre. That crop actually takes from the air and contains in itself 
about one hundred and forty pounds of nitrogen, which is almost 
exactly the equivalent of the amount of ammonia contained in one 
tan of cotton seed meal, worth in the market not less than twenty- 
six dollars. And here is a crop that will grow on any acre of wire- 
grass Georgia soil, that has been actually so endowed by the 
Creator that it takes from the air into its leaves one hundred and 
forty pounds of atmospheric nitrogen, which is the equivalent of a 
thousand pounds of nitrate of soda, worth today in the market 
fifteen dollars. This means that by the occasional growth of the 
velvet bean that where we wish to grow cotton, corn or any other 
crop we depend upon as a staple, by growing velvet beans on this 
land and either feeding it to our stock or allowing the crop to 
die and plowing it under, we actually add to that soil one hundred 
and forty pounds of nitrogen, the equal of one ton of cotton seed 
meal, and which is sufficient for the average crop of cotton' to be 
grown upon that land for five years. So the velvet bean is w^orthy 
of special consideration as a crop adapted to our lands, and can be 
more cheaply grown than any crop that I know. Actual experience 
shows me in Florida that it can be produced for two dollars per 
acre, and we have at that cost furnished to the land per acre the 
equivalent of one ton of cotton seed meal, with the fertilizing value 
of which you are familiar. 

So much for the relation we have shown it to have to our sys- 
tem of farming, and so much for maintaining the fer'-'^'ty of our 
lands. Now I wish to occupy a few minutes of time in ''aisidera: 
tion of other features of the subject of even greater importance- 

40 



There is no question — I believe we all recognize the fact, and 
it has been i-eiterated here today over and over — that the basis of 
all generally successful agricultural prosperity of the world dates 
from far pre-historic times to stock husbandry. There is no 
agricultural section of this country where there is prosperity 
where stock-farming in some form is not incorporated into the 
system of agriculture. Unfortunately, to-day stock farming is 
given almosb no consideration here, but the time has come, I be- 
lieve, when the Georgia farmer realizes that there must be a change 
of some sort, and he is only looking for light. I wish, therefore, 
only to give you a few facts concerning the use of this velvet bean 
as related to stock husbandry, particularly when we take into con- 
sideration what we all recognize as a fact — that in the feeding of 
animal or man, variety of food is absolutely indispensible to the 
highest degree of successful development. We have given consid- 
erable attention to the heat or fat-producing elements of food, but 
to arrive at success in the production and raising of cattle, they 
must have their proper portion of protein. Protein is the expen- 
sive ingredient in all food stuffs. The question that confronts us, 
that confronts us therefore, is, how can protein be cheaply pro- 
duced to supply the amount of hydro-carbon ration that is required 
for our cattle. I liold out the velvet bean as furnishing a solution 
of that problem, not without being mindful of the value and im- 
portance of cotton seed meal that has already been considered. 
' But you understand that cotton seed meal is today extremely 
costly. I don't know how profitable at present prices the Danish 
dairyman may find it to purchase cotton seed meal for his cattle, 
and I don't know how valuable it may prove to the Michigan or 
New York stock and cattle raiser to purchase it for food, but we 
are beginning to think in Florida that a cheap protein food is de- 
sirable to us at least. I offer you the velvet bean as being the 
cheapest protein C(mstituents of all food stuffs. It is like red clo- 
ver, and like every leguminous plant, rich in protein, and it can be 
comi)ounded with other materials, so that the ration which we 
can produce will be a cheap hydro-carbon constitutent in the form 
of cassava, and a cheap protein constituent in the form of the vel- 
vet bean, and which I believe will furnish the cheapest stock- 
fattening ration that the stockman in any section of the country 
has ever been able to utiHze. We have the woods steer, an animal 
with which you are all perfectly familiar. Taken from the range 
and fed upon a ration made of velvet beans and cassava, with a lit- 
tle cotton seed meal, he will fatten amazingly. I have here today 
(indicating a piece of beef Prof. Stockbridge had brought with him 
and placed upon the table,) the actual result of feeding siach a ra- 
tion. This is beef killed from a steer yesterday morning, and it 
would have been a little better, more tender, if I had allowed it to 
ripen before cutting. That was a piney woods steer. The animal 
when I took him from the range was five years old, a little older 
than he ought to have been, but I couldn't get just what I wanted. 
This steer weighed 750 pounds when I placed him upon a full ra- 
tion. I fed him on a ration, as I say, made up of this velvet bean 
and cassava with a little cotton seed meal, and he weighed yester- 
day morning when slaughtered (live weight) 1030 pounds, and I 

,41 



had fed him only seventy days. The average feeding period, I 
will call your attention, in the corn section that is given to beef to 
be sold in the Chicago market is from ninety to one hundred and 
twenty days — probably more often one hundred and twenty than 
ninety. This one I fed only seventy days, a period a little more 
than one-half of the length of time a Northern steer M^ould have to 
be fed. That is one of the great advantages which we have over 
the Northern beef feeder, the profits come back in half the time. 
And why? Because a smaller portion of the food is required to 
furnish heat for the animal and a greater portion of it goes into 
the fattening of the beef. This animal was fed only seventy days; 
he was one of a bunch of twelve. The average daily amount of 
food given to that steer for the seventy-day feeding period was 
3.68 pounds. That during the seventy days of feeding put on the 
carcass of that steer daily a little more than three and a half pounds 
of weight. Prom one to two pounds is pretty successful business 
in the corn country. The cost to feed this animal, the ration that 
was given him was approximately (allowing for all the materials at 
their market cost) ten cents per day. The total cost of feeding the 
steer for the seventy days therefore, allowing the market price of 
the food to remain the same, was $7.00, and the actual gain in 
weight for the period was 263 pounds. The actual profit on the 
feeding, allowing the full market cost of the material consumed, 
the actual profit as shown by the book-keeper was $11.72. The 
steer cost $20.00 to start with, which is larger than the average of 
such animals. The average is about $13.00 or $14.00. So you see 
the per cent of profit on the investment was 58 per cent, and re- 
ceived at the end of seventy days. 

A member: What price did you put on the meat? 

Mr. Stockbridge: The price we actually sold it at. There is 
nothing theoretical about this — it is an actual illustration. We 
sold it and got the mcmey for it — sold it at eight cents a pound. 

Now, I wish to say a word as to the question of a market. 
There are good judges here, and they will have a chance to taste 
and judge of this meat tonight. Some of us are going to eat that 
beef. It happened two or three days ago that two gentlemen were 
down in our country who are "^ery familiar with the stock busi- 
ness, being from Kentucky, Mr, Gaitskill had them take a meal 
with him, and gave them some of our home-grown beef, and they 
both pronounced the porter house steak cut from a small animal 
the best meat they had ever seen in their lives. 

Now as to the market. I have been through the mill so far as 
the market is concerned, and there is nothing hypothetical abput 
what I am going to say. The moment such meat as this is put 
upon the market and the people become aware of the fact that they 
can get that meat, there is no trouble to sell it. When I first com- 
menced selling 'this meat, it was almost impossible to convince the 
butchers that there was any beef raised in Georgia or Florida that 
could be sold. And it was only by opening a stall and retailing the 
meat that we could start a market. But the result was that the 
people who had been eating the Chicago beef got a taste of the na- 
tive beef, and from that day to this they have insisted upon having 
this beef. The demand for it ic such that this year the butchers 

42 



of Lake City, in their efforts to get our beef, bid against eacli otiiei', 
until I sold my meat for half a cent a pound more than the Chicago 
beef would have cost them laid down in Lake City market; and 
what is more, after I had closed the deal and sold it to one man, 
another fellow took me by the coat and led me oft" behind the door 
and offered me a quarter of a cent more if I would break the bar- 
gain. 

But just suppose you cannot sell it. If you can only produce 
such meat. Have you ever meditated upon the fact that the wire- 
grass region of Georgia is nearer to Chicago than Motana is, and 
if the Chicago market is not satisfactory, right here at our door is 
deep water which will give us ento the English market and the 
other markets of the world? If you become dissatisfied with sup- 
plying the Chicago market, the markets are alive at our door. The 
demand for it exists, and all that remains is simply to supply that 
demand. 

I didn't intend to occupy so much time as this, but I wanted 
to present these facts in a plain way, in such a way as I hoped 
would be a demonstration and an incentive to effort. These things 
are all of importance to us, and these things are wortliy of our 
careful thouglit and consideration. Take the statements that I 
have given you and think them over. 

Secretary Wilson: Professor, I would like to ask you a ques- 
tion. What is the nutritive value of this ration? 

Mr. Stockbridge: It is about 1.065, but I cannot give it to you 
exactly. 

Mr. Goodyear: You told us a short time ago about a bunch 
of cattle raised on velvet beans by somebody, I would be glad 
if you would tell that again. 

Mr. Stockbridge: If the people would like to hear the facts, 
I will be glad to tell it. I don't want to make a speech, but just to 
give facts. The matter to which ourjChairman alludes is one bear- 
ing out the demonstration of the practicability of this business. 
For the last two years in Florida men have been going into this 
business for the sole purpose that they are convinced that there is 
money in it. It is no longer an experiment, it has reached a busi- 
ness basis. Mr. Joseph Sumner, of Jasper, Florida, is a hardware 
dealer, and a man of broad views. He runs his business, all that 
he goes into, on strict business principles, and therefore the re- 
sults of his experience are not founded on guess work. He had 
been watching this business, and became convinced there was 
money in it. In this, as in everything else, his book-keeper keeps 
accounts of everything that goes into the business and everything 
that comes out of it. He had a large bunch of cattle that he had 
been accustomed to allow to run on the range. He planted a year 
ago now an old range in velvet beans. It cost him about two dol- 
lars per acre to mature the crop. The beans were allowed to ripen, 
and last November on what he had planted, ninety acres, he turned 
in 297 steers. For quickness in figuring I will call it three hun- 
dred, although it was three short of that. He turned the three 
hundred steers on the ninety acres and fed them for ninety days. 
At the end of ninety days he shipped the beeves to market, and 
the books showed that his actual profit was approximately twelv^ 

43 



dollars per head; the actual profit on the three hundred steers, 
charging against them all the labor and the entire cost involved in 
the whole transaction, the actual profit on the enterprise v^as 
thirty-six hundred dollars. And in addition to that, after the 
steers were sold, he turned a carload of hogs in there, and within 
the past two weeks he has shipped the hogs to market, and I have 
not yet heard the returns from the hogs, bat that will be additional 
profits to what he made on the steers. I could give you many 
other instances, but I am more familiar with this than L am with 
the others. I am more familiar with this because, I might say, I 
am responsible for this. But there are many other men in Florida 
who are doing the same thing, and at just about that rate of profit. 

Secretary Wilson: How far north will the velvet bean grow? 

Mr. Stockbridge: The velvet bean has been grown as far 
north as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and North Dakota, but it will not 
mature satisfactorily north of Augusta, Georgia. It will, there- 
fore, produce a most excellent forage almost everywhere in Geor- 
gia, Alabama and also in Carolina. I should perhaps, as a matter 
of practical detail, also mention some particulars as to the way in 
which we use it. The method we follow in feeding it, whether we 
feed it with cassava or other food, is not to cut the vine and make 
hay of it. Our method is not to harvest the crop; and it is so inde- 
structible that even though you should have a killing frost upon it, 
you can still forage it, and the cattle will eat it readily. It will 
make a perfect mat on the ground and will not then be affected by 
damp or rain and will stay there in that condition, and all classes 
of live stock, both beef and hogs, are very fond of it even in that 
condition. The larger part of the feeders simply turn their ani- 
mals in on these dry beans, although some of us who want to get 
better results, use a chopper in preparing the ration. 

Secretary Wilson: There is no way for the small farmer to 
improve his soil so fast as not to gather his crop, but just to turn 
the animals in on the crop in that way. I don't want the im- 
pression to go out that the small farmer could do better by harvest- 
ing his crop and taking it off the soil. 

A member: How much of the beans do you plant per acre? 

Mr. Stockbridge: From one to two pecks per acre, and then 
cultivate them once or twice. 

Secretary Wilson: Where do you get the seed? 

Mr. Stockbridge: The seedsmen will sell you the seed in 
small quantities, and charge you from about $2.00 to $2.25 per 
bushel for them, but you can get any» quantity of them in Florida 
at $1.35. They are just as much a part of farming in Florida as 
corn is in Georgia. I know one man in Florida. last year who had 
thirteen hundred acres, and there are in places bean hulhng mills, 
like cotton gins, where they do custom hulling, because the beans 
are so tough that they cannot be hulled like the ordinary beans can 
be thrashed. 

A member: Has there ever been any effort to extract the oil 
from them? 

Mr. Stockbridge: Only in a crude way. It was dependent 
upon the oil mill, and possibly because they feared cbmpetition, or 
possibly because the bean hulls did actually create an obstruction 

44 



to the machinery, but the experiment was not a success. They 
claimed that the oil mill machinery would not extract it. 

A Member: The velvet bean is also a good horse food, but 
horses are very cranky about their food as a rule, and do not like 
the bean. I have known horses to enjoy them occasionally but 
not as a steady ration; and the hulls of the beans as they come from 
the mills, I am almost willing to take them instead of bran. 

Col. Wade; How about grinding up the whole thing together? 

Mr. Stockbridge: That is one way to utilize the crop. Last 
year we used them that way. Any mill that will grind cobs will 
grind them. We tried feeding them whole, hulls and all, just as 
they were, but we found that the cattle would digest them better 
if they were ground up and broken. 

A Member: Will you be kind enough to give me an address 
where I can get some of these beansV 

Mr. Stockbridge: Certainly. You can write to J. W. Emer- 
son, Apopka, Florida. There are a good many feeders in Florida 
who use this same feed stuff as a hog feed with satisfactory re- 
sults. Most of the men who are feeding the velvet bean to hogs 
are feeding them to the razor back, the native hog. 

The Chair: Now gentlemen, we have a healthy optimist here 
with us today, a man who is known throughout the State of Geor- 
gia wherever anybody cultivates land, and he has chosen a subject 
that will interest any man who is interested in farming in Georgia 
— an experiment station for Georgia. I introduce to you Hon. J. 
Pope Brown. 

Mr. Brown: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen of the 
Convention: Upon receiving your invitation, Mr. Chairman, I was 
somewhat at a loss to know exactly what subject I should choose 
to speak upon at this occasion. I dicided at once that I would 
accept the kind invitation; that was not the question. Just one 
year ago I received an invitation of the same sort. At that time I 
had the honor to be president of the State Agricultural Society, 
and I felt that the invitation extended to me then was due to that 
fact. I appreciated it nevertheless and showed my appreciation 
by responding to the invitation; but I want to assure you, sir, that 
on this occasion I feel a more vivid appreciation of your invitation 
as a private in the ranks of Georgia farmers, and the only question, 
as I said, that troubled me at all was upcm what line I should talk. 
Upon the question of cassava I know nothing at all. It was some- 
thing new to me and I doubt whether it would grow successfully 
in our part of the State. Sugar cane I had grown to a limited ex- 
tent, but a great many who were here could tell me very much 
more about growing sugar cane than I knew. But there is a ques- 
tion intimately connected with the growing of cassava and the 
growing of sugar cane, and that is of interest to us all, and I finally 
decided that I would talk about that question, which I thought 
after aU if we decided to go into the raising of cassava and sugar 
cane in South Georgia, would be the most important question of all 
— the most important subject, or one of the most important, and 
that was the question of establishing an experiment station in 
South Georgia. 

Mr. Chairman, if you will bear with me for a few minutes — I 

45 "' 



know the hour is late, and there are several to follow me, and I feel 
somewhat impressed by reason of that fact and I want to say what 
I have to say in as few words as possible, but I feel that this is a 
really important question, and I would like to say just a few words 
on the line that leads me up to that. Farming has been my busi- 
ness for twenty-five years, and I have tried to study it just as 
another man studies a profession as a lawyer or a doctor, to know 
what was the proper thing for us to do, not only for myself, but 
for the farmers as a whole, and from my position as president of 
the State Agricultural Society it was my duty and my pleasure to 
stir those questions which would do most to promote the material 
interests of our whole State. I not only did that myself, but I 
invited others to our conventions to discuss these questions. Upon 
one occasion I had the question to discuss together with many 
prominent Georgians, as to what are the needs of the Georgia 
farmer. The same question was put to each one of the speakers 
and they discussed it from different standpoints. What are the 
needs of the Georgia farmer? Some had one idea and some an- 
other. Some said they don't work enough, when I know that a 
good many of them work from before day until noon and from noon 
until dark. Some of them work in the rain and in the sun and on 
Sunday and don't accomplish anything. I didn't believe that was 
the trouble, lack of work. And for twenty-five years I have been 
trying to solve that question — what do we need? What is neces- 
sary for our success? A good many years ago I went to Atlanta 
to attend a convention called by Gen. John B. Gordon, who was 
then governor. He caUed our neighbors into a convention of the 
cotton growing belt, and I recollect that Henry Grady was called 
upon to make the address of welcome. I know no reason why he 
should have been called upon to welcome the farmers, unless it 
was because he was the only living man who knew less about 
f irming than Gen. Gordon himself. But he said one thing that 
impressed me there. He was called upon to discuss the deprecia- 
tion in agriculture and the remedy therefor, and he said: "I don't 
know what the trouble is, but I do know that the trouble is not in 
the climate nor in the soil." If that is the case, if the remedy is 
not in the climate and not in the soil, then the remedy was in men 
to devise, and if we couldn't find the remedy the trouble was in 
ourselves and nobody else. I always did hope, I went and got 
fresh inspiration from that speech that day, and I have kept it up 
ever since. I thank you. sir, for introducing me as an optimist. 

When I was made president of the State Agricultural Society, 
I said to the convention that the conditions were more favorable 
than they had been in twenty years. It was the truth, although 
some of us at that time were talking in a different strain. Some 
of them said that ain't the kind of talk for a free silver man to talk. 
It won't do. I have always been glad that I said it. I have always 
made up my mind never to make a pessimistic speech. I never 
sing anything but a cheerful song, and I don't like this doleful kind 
of singing that we hear sometimes in our churches. Cotton got 
down to 4 cents a pound, and they met in Macon, and had a great 
many different kinds of conventions at different places. And 
finally it occured to them to have a wheat convention, and they had 

46 



it in Macon. I went there and they called on me to make a speech, 
and I told them I was like the Irishman that fell in the well, that I 
had made up my mind never to make anything but a cheerful 
speech, and I would not be a pessimist there or any where else, but 
that I was almost hke the Irishman that fell in the well. His wife 
looked down there and asked him if he was dead, and he said: No, 
he was not dead, but he was speechless. So when cotton was down 
to 4 cents a pound I was almost speechless, but I felt that there 
was a future still for us. I had great confidence in our soil and 
chmate, great confidence in our resources, and there has since 
been a brighter day for us, and I am glad to be able to say here 
today, that I believe there is more general prosperity in the State 
of Georgia amongst all classes of people than there has ever been 
in the history of the State. There are more people wearing shoes, 
more people wearing hats and good clothes, more people riding in 
buggies and getting plenty to do, there are more people riding on 
the railroads and paying their way — we have more railroads and 
better railroads, we have got more and better farms and better 
farmers, more school houses and better school houses, and more 
children going to school with more teachers and better teachers — 
than ever was true before in the history of our State. 

I want to go back to that convention, just a few minutes, over 
which General Gordon presided. When they went to consider the 
cause of agricultural depression, every man there seemed loaded 
with the idea that it was somehow due to the tariff, that the tariff 
was the great bugaboo, that there was no chance of prosperity for 
the people of the South until we got the tariff fixed. Well, I don't 
know. I went there to get information. They kept on talking 
that way until I decided myself, after awhile, that we were ruined 
if we did not get the tariff fixed like we wanted it. After awhile 
old General Mosby got up and said the tariff might be all wrong, 
he didn't know about that, but there was no tariff <m the Western 
meat that you are buying, there is no tariff on the Western mules 
you are buying, or the Western corn or the Western hay that you 
are buying; that there was no tariff on any of these things that we 
are buying, when we ought just to step out to our barns or smoke 
houses and get them. He didn't make any speech, but he just 
knocked that whole thing about the tariff out of my head. I de- 
cided that the tariff might be wrong, that they might properly fix 
it a little different perhaps, but that there were many worse things 
than the tariff. 

Then we got up the -idea of a sub-treasury. Some of us thought 
that was just the salvation. It was the great theme, the popular 
theme. Congressmen got elected on that idea of a sub-treasury 
or something better, and when they got to ccmgress, I reckon they 
found the "something better," because we never heard anything 
more about the sub-treasury. I was in with them all along, I 
want to say, though I didn't run for any office on it. 

Then they told us, Mr. Chairman, that there was no use talk- 
ing about the prosperity of the Southern farmer unless we 
were for free silver — no chance at all. It was a settled fact, if 
free silver went down, everything went down — there was no 
question about it. Well, we had nothing to lojse, and we ^ere 

47 



willing t© take the risk of the change, so we were all for it. 
We were just like an old neighbor of mine just after the war, 
before they commenced using guano promiscuously. He was 
using guano on his land, and some one asked him if it would 
pay to use guano on that land. He said he didn't know, that it 
was a risk to use it, but he would perish without it. That is 
the way we were with free silver. We did not know what the 
outcome would be, but we did know that we were in a terrible 
fix and wanted to change it, and were willing to take the risk. 
Well, we didn't get free silver, but cotton went up, and times 
got better, and now we don't care much whether we did or not. 
So long as we can get eight to ten cents for our cotton, we will 
take any currency we can get. 

So w^e have not got to the great trouble yet. We have tried 
all of these different schemes and isms for twenty-five years 
back, and have discussed them in the lines and outside the 
lines, and we never found but one proposition that we all agreed 
upon, and that was a thing proposed by one of our populist 
friends a few years ago. We had gone over all these things, 
and we couldn't decide which was the right one to bring pros- 
perity. There was the question of under-consumption and over- 
production, and we couldn't exactly decide which one it was 
that was the matter. Finally one fellow got up and said: "I 
move that we raise less cotton and more hell," and that was 
the thing that we kinder united upon. I believe that was the 
only thing that would ever have brought us together, and from 
that time to this, we have been getting along all right, but I 
want to say that I believe it was the "less cotton" proposition 
that ,c irried it. I want us to get to raising less cotton and a 
good deal less hell. 

Now in regard to this proposition of an experiment stati(m. 
I have given it the best thought with which I have been endowed, 
and I have decided that after all, what the Georgia farmer needs 
above all other things is knowledge. That is what he needs. He 
needs knowledge about his own business, about his own particular 
business, and then he can afford to let other people run theirs. 
He doesn't need any knowledge about somebody else's business — 
he knows too much about that now. He wants knowledge about 
his own business. How are we going to give it to him? I had the 
honor at one time to represent my county in the Georgia legisla- 
ture, if you will excuse a personal illustration. Some of the farm- 
ers said they were going to send me to the legislature, and they 
wanted me to do something after I got there. The question occur- 
red to me: What can the legislature do for the farmers that will 
benefit them? And I got to thinking about that, as to what the 
farmers needed tliat the legislature could supply. I had been 
with them in the fields and out of the fields, in the meetings and 
out of the meetings, and I decided that what they needed above 
other things was knowledge. I said, why can't the legislature 
give that to us? estabhsh a school that will teach us something 
about our business that we didn't know. Most of ^^ ^-^ ^ so 
ignorant at that time that we didn't know wiiat the fed: rn- 

ment was doing towards trying to educate the counts:, i cried 

48 



to get up a bill to establish an agricultural college, and it was when 
that thing was hanging along, and I was studying the question, I 
got a little light here and a little light there, and I found out that 
the federal government was sending about forty thousand dollars 
a year to Georgia to teach the farmers about their business. I 
didn't know it. There are lots of people in Georgia who don't 
know it now — ninety per cent, of .the people don't know it. 

Just before that time they had been charging the farmers of 
Georgia fifty cents per ton for inspecting fertilizers. The farmers 
of Georgia were paying one hundred thousand dollars or more a 
year into the treasury of the State more than other tax payers. 
So I thought I would get hold of a httle of that money to help the 
thing out. I thought there would be no trouble in the world in 
doing a thing of that sort, the money belonged to us, and I thought 
I just had to ask for it — demand it. When that billw^as presented 
a crowd on the other side there said you can't get that money, we 
are using that for another purpose and you can't get it. And we 
didn't get it. And I want to say on that line, that there is nobody 
more to blame for not getting it than the farmers themselves. I 
want to tell the truth as I go along. We have got to wake up the 
farmers as to what their needs are. This very last legislature a 
committee went there and asked for the establishment of an ex- 
periment station in South Georgia, but they said they couldn't do 
it. We wanted to pass a bill to provide farmers' institutes through- 
out the State. They couldn't do it, didn't have the money. But 
the same legislature says, we can spend five hundred thousand 
dollars to build a depot in Atlanta. They said that was a business 
propositon that would pay six per cent, on the investment. It don't 
pay, I reckon, to invest anything in the brain of the youth of the 
country. There is no business in that — no interest coming back, 
but the other is a six per cent, interest paying proposition, the five 
hundred thousand dollar depot for Atlanta. When I see the Geor- 
gia legislature refuse to grant the necessary money for an experi- 
ment station because they didn't have the money, and refuse to 
provide the farmers' institutes on the plea of poverty, and then 
vote to build a five hundred thousand dollar depot in the city of 
Atlanta, I exclaim: In the name of God and common sense what is 
the matter with the Georgia legislature. 

I will tell you, Mr. Chairman, it is time for us to think some on 
these lines, and I am glad to see and glad to welcome this move- 
ment right here in the city of Brunswick, and to bid it God speed; 
and I wiU say one other thing about it that is strange to see. It is 
a peculiar fact that nearly eyery movement designed for the benefit 
of the agricultural classes or among them, starts not with the 
agricultural classes,- or among them, but in the towns and 
cities. What shall we do for this people to enable them to prosper? 
I answer. Establish these experiment stations and agricultural 
colleges. A few years ago I noticed that a committee was sent 
out by the city of New York to inquire into the agricultural de- 
pression there, and the report showed that what they needed was 
more agricultural colleges and experiment stations to give them 
more science,. teach them how to farm, and they would be pros- 
perous, lip here in our county of Spalding is a proof of that. 

49 



They had a convention there for the purpose of teaching^ the 
farmers. It was held in the city of Griffin. And the result was 
that next year the county of Spalding took all of the prizes at the 
State fair, and that was due to the fact that an experiment station 
was established in Spalding county. As I said, what we want is 
knowledge, and I believe that one of the best ways in which to give 
us that knowledge is through these experiment stations. 

I am very glad that Secretary Wilson is here with us today, 
and I am glad that I was here to hear what he has had to say to 
us. And I want to say right here in your presance, if you will 
excuse me for saying it, that I never enjoyed a speech more in my 
life than the one he has delivered here. It is one of the best 
speeches, and a speech that is calculated to produce the most far 
reaching good results than any I have heard delivered anywhere 
in this country. He said it was the business of his department to 
watch the Imports 'and exports of the country, which is one of the 
biggest problems our country has to deal with, because we all 
know that the relation of the imports to the exports of a country is 
what makes a country rich or poor; and when you diminish the 
imports and increase the exports — when that work is done through 
his department, it is the biggest work and the grandest work that 
is being done by any of the departments of our government. 

Strange to say just a few years ago we had no Agricultural 
Department, and there is no more important Department in all the 
government than the Agricultural Department and, if you will ex- 
cuse me further, the good work that that Department is doing 
has never been so weU demonstrated as here to-day. So far a* 
I am concerned I should like to see the pre.sent incumbent abide 
in that position for life. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, if we want an experiment station, as I 
said the federal government is liberal on that line, and its repre- 
sentative has been most liberal, and has promised us all we could 
ask of him, but we should do something ourselves. 1 am in favor 
of that. I am in favor of the people helping themselves. I never 
had any patience with the plea of poverty of the people of Georgia. 
Some of you may say they are a poor people, I say they are not. 
It is not a question of poverty, it is not a question of lack of means, 
it is just a question of indifference, Mr. Chairman. The people of 
Georgia are able to do whatever they want to do— whatever is 
necessary. But they have got to be aroused, they have got to 
waken up. Right on that line a few years ago a friend of mine 
tried to start a wheat business and I suggested to him that he buy 
five hundred bushels of wheat to commence with. He said, the 
people are not able to pay for five hundred bushels of wheat, though 
a good many of them are able to buy five hundred gallons of whis- 
key. But time showed it was not so. They could buy tlie wheat 
and they did buy it. 

Now, what are we going to do about this experiment station ? 
Do we want it, and if we want it how are we going about to get it? 
In the first place we should get our own representatives in the 
legislature from South Georgia in favor of it. When we do that, 
that is aU that is necessary to get all the appropriation that we 
need from the State government. There is only one thing to fear 

50 



from that. A fellow says, I am in favor of it, but why don't they 
establish it in my county V We don't want anything like that or 
we will not succeed. And perhaps we will find some that say we 
do not need it all. What are we going to do with a man like that ? 
He reminds me of the time when they were trying to get up f. 
a railroad in Amerieus. They had one railroad there, but there 
was a chance of getting another one, and they had a meeting in 
the town. The first man that got up, one of the largest merchants 
there, said' do you think we need another railroad? Don't you 
think that this railroad can haul in all that we can buyV Then an- 
other man said let's go. If we can get our own people in a notion 
that they feel like they want this experiment station, that is all we 
have got to do. Talk about North Georgia, when it comes to this 
or that or the other. North Georgia gets anything it wants, be- 
cause the people make up their minds to have it. I know the people 
of North Georgia about as well as I know the people of South 
Georgia. They got a g(M:)logical department in Georgia. How 
much benefit does that do anybody here, or anywhere in South 
Georgia? Not a bit. They got it because they were not divided 
about it. And it is just the same way about an experiment station 
for South Georgia, we can easily get it if we are not divided about it. 

Mr. Chairman, I want it understood that I am willing to take 
all we can get along that line from the federal government, aud be 
glad to get it, but that is an installment. We ought not to rest on 
that. We should do something for ourselves and the federal gov- 
ernment will be still more liberal. The federal government has 
already been more liberal on the question of agricultural education 
in Georgia than the State of Georgia has when that bill was passed 
by Mr. Morrill of Vermont fifty years ago. That was a piece of 
statesmanship made into fact. He realized that the two great 
industries were manufacturing and agriculture. Take care of 
them and they will take care of everything else. He said we will 
distribute the proceeds of these lands for the benefit of agriculture 
and manufactures in all the Stutes of the Union. I say it was a 
piece of statesmanship. All we have got to do is to use the funds 
properly and we will be better off in Georgia right along that very 
hne. That is the one thing and it has been as liberal to the manu- 
facturing interests of our country, has done as, much for education 
along that hne for our youth. You cannot start a manufactory of 
any kind until you have imported the brain to run the machinery. 
There was no place in Georgia devoted to teaching manufactures 
until very recently, when the legislature established the techno- 
logical school. 

To get an experiment station the only thing we have got to do 
is to get our own people in the notion that they need it, an(J I would 
suggest appointing a committee to start in as soon as all the mem- 
bers of the legislature have been nominated, and begin conferring 
with them on that line, and get the members from South Georgia 
in favor of that proposition, and I am satisfied that there will be 
no trouble in the world about getting that station. 

One other thing. We don't intend to interfere in any way with 
the experiment station that is already established under Col. Red- 
ding. I hope before this meeting closes that a motion will be 

51 



made to that effect, and that the chairman of this meeting at his 
leisure will appoint a committee to work this matter up and get it 
"before the legislature, and see if we cannot get this appropriation 
from year to year for this Experiment Station. 

Now, in conclusion, I want to say this: All we have got to do 
to be prosperous, is to known what to do, for we are willing to 
work — we are riot such lazy people as we are sometimes accused 
of being. I don't know that I can say we work too much, but I 
say we work enough; and if we can learn how to properly direct 
our work in the proper conduct of agricultural matters, Georgia 
will not only deserve the name she now has of being the Empire 
-State of the South, but the time will come, and I want to help to 
make it come, when she will be the Empire State of the Union. 

A meriiber (R. J. Redding, Experiment, Ga.): Mr. Chair- 
man — I felt so much interested in this convention that I left a sick 
bed yesterday to come here. I don't propose to make anything 
like a talk, but I want to say a few words in connection with what 
has been said by Colonel Brown. I wan! to say that there has been 
in Georgia an experiment station at Grifiiin for nearly thirteen 
years, and before the first year, I realized that there ought to be 
an experiment station or a branch station in South Georgia. I 
have realized that more and more every year, that in Georgia, 
especially of all the States in the Union, there ought to be more 
than one experiment station. The State extends north and south 
about three hundred miles, and it rises in elevation from the sea 
level up to twenty-five hundred, and the State you might say is, 
between the north and the south, divided into two classes of soil 
and two classes of climate. Although California is some seven 
hundred miles from north to south, the climate of Georgia from 
north to south is more varied than that of California.. I would not 
locate the experiment station immediately on the coast, but I would 
put it somewhere nearly at equal distances from the south coast, 
from Macon and from Columbus. I should think that it should 
include other things as well as cane and cassava. I feel that there 
is room for a full experiment station without intrenching upon the 
station at Experiment. 

I am in entire sympathy with the desire for an experiment 
.station in South Georgia. So far as my influence goes, if I have 
any at all, I will exert it in that, direction. Whatever may be done 
by the State of Georgia, and whatever added by congress, I am 
ready and willing to do what I can to help it along. If you can get , 
a full station from congress well and good. But if not, and it only 
gives a small amount per year, then the State of Georgia is able to- 
supplement it, and I think should do so. I think that we ought to 
have two,experiment stations in Georgia. 

Short addresses were made by Maj. W. L. Glessner, J. M. 
Jardine, John H'. Stevens, and others, upon same general lines. 

The convention then adjourned. 



-Piessof H.A. Wrench & bons, Brunswick. 

52 



k 



I 



3 




llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllf^-1 

003 028 107 n^ 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE BRUNSWICK BOARD OF TRADE 

BRUNSWICK. GA. 



